Imitation of Life (1959)

What is there to say except I'd defy anyone not to be moved by this movie and you'll never tire of watching it over and over. No one special performance, they're all fantastic! If you enjoy Madame X then Lana Turner out acts herself. The film brings home the feeling we all may have but should not have in that you should never deny your loved ones, especially your mother and you realise that a mother's love really is unconditional. Sit back with a box of choccies,a glass of wine and a box of tissues and ENJOY! This is one of my all time greats! It really is a mother/daughter movie and will definitely bring you closer together.

Fmovies: I was about 11 or 12 years old when i watched this movie. I will NEVER forget the impact of the scene where the MAMMA is Dying of total heartbreak over her daughters lifestyle and that when the time came when the Mother died, OH MY GOD...when the daughter tried to get into the coffin ..and that it was all TOO LATE.I LITERALLY cried for days and my MOM could not ease my heartache over such a terrible thing that the girl did to her MOM. I made up my mind i would NEVER hurt my Mother like that in REAL LIFE, and even though every family has their problems MY Mamma was my Mamma and i desperately love her though she is gone now.

This movie had the strongest,most POWERFUL influence in my life ...more then any other movie to this date until THE PASSION directed by Mel Gibson.. THANK GOD for MEL!. I also became a stronger young person due to IMITATION OF LIFE. I wish all movie makers today cared half as much as the directors did back in those years when life held more value on morals and character and decency.. i miss the genuiness of clean ,healthy simple life! GOD BLESS all!

The preposterous nature of a few of the reviewers here (who desperately need to get a clue) prompted me to leave one myself. This film has to be understood from a historic perspective (made during a time when segregation was still going on), in order to be full appreciated. If you can do that (classic film fans auto-learn to do this while watching old films), its a more than worthwhile film. Yes it is a bit soapy and melodramatic, though. What is a MISTAKE however is all these people here trying to appropriate their own modern-day politics onto their assessment of the film (which are Irrelevant), and other ridiculous shallow outlooks (one person saw the daughters actions as legit, and demonized BOTH mothers??!) that just don't see the whole picture. Another claimed Sandra Dee 's acting was superb and the mother's couldn't act (safe to say that reviewer was no actor lol)... Method acting was not the final word on acting in Hollywood... And while Lana was great and I love her, (I know she could get a bit hammy at times, especially on her downhill), she was good in this i think...however, ANYONE that tries to take away from Juanita Moore's awesome performance in this movie (compared to Sandra Dee??! C'mon..) Is just clueless. Not to mention the broken ground here... The fact that she was finally getting to show her stuff as a great dramatic actress, instead of having to just play someone's maid. The girl who played Juanita's daughter however was also a very standout performance as well, for a newcomer. Though I also could totally have seen Natalie Wood in this role.

Imitation of Life fmovies. The conflict between mothers and daughters has long been a Hollywood plot device. Sometimes it is done badly ("Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood"), sometimes it can be campy (the immortal shriek fest "Mommie Dearest") and sometimes a film does it really well ("Mildred Pierce"). "Imitation of Life", Douglas Sirk's 1959 film starring Lana Turner and Juanita Moore, squarely fits into that last category.

Lora Meredith (Turner) is a young widow, a single parent and struggling actress. One day when she loses her young daughter Susie at the beach, and with the help of a photographer she encounters, Steve Archer (Gavin) she finds her with Annie Johnson (Moore), an African-American woman, and her own young daughter Sarah Jane. After Lora and Annie talk for a bit, we find that Lora is having a hard time juggling her career with having a young child, and that Annie and her daughter are newly arrived in town and do not have a place to stay, so after Annie asks to work for Lora in exchange for room and board, they strike up a close friendship, as do their daughters. The film spans about ten years, and during those ten years Lora becomes a very successful Broadway actress, and Susie is sent away to an exclusive boarding school. Meanwhile, Annie is still her loyal right-hand, having decided to continue working for Lora, even though she has been putting the money that she has earned away. Sarah Jane, however, a very light-skinned girl who is able to pass as white, cannot get past her hatred of her own race, and her embarrassment of her mother's color and position. She is continually scheming and running away in order to rid herself of her true heritage, which ends up literally breaking her mother's heart.

"Imitation of Life" is outwardly a very pretty film with gorgeous coloring, beautiful actors and costumes to die for. When this veneer is peeled back, however, the true nature of the film is revealed, and its conflicts are painfully apparent. Lora and Steve are clearly meant to be together, but her career repeatedly gets in the way until Steve is no longer able to sit by idly, waiting for her while realizing that he is always going to be low on her priority list. While Sarah Jane envies Lora and Susie's looks, money and ultimately, color, it quickly becomes clear that their problems are substantial. While they had a close relationship when Susie was six, with the advent of Lora's career, the love Lora had for Susie did not diminish, but her attention and time for her did. When Susie returns home from a break at school, it is in her mother's absence that she latches on to Steve, (newly reunited with the family after ten years) and ultimately falls in love with him. In regard to Annie and Sarah Jane, there is nothing that the kind-hearted, completely selfless Annie can do to appease her daughter, a realization that is so hurtful that it makes her physically sick.

The great Douglas Sirk weaves all of these conflicts masterfully. Sirk, often marginalized as a "fluff piece" director due to the strong melodramatic content of his films, is at his very best with this film. "Imitation of Life" does not stray from his other films in terms of formula: We have a conflict that is socially relevant and somewhat inflammatory, beautiful actors and actresses playing the part, rich, lush colors throughout the entire production and loads of expensive jewelry and costumes. While there are Douglas Sirk movies that I really like for their camp val

For a long time Douglas Sirk was dismissed by all but he most insightful critics. It was thought that he made a series of well crafted, well acted, but ultimately empty"weepies"(as well as "americana" films, a swashbuckler( Captain Lightfoot), a revisionist western( Taza Son of Cochise),and a sandals and toga epic(Sign of the Pagan.)

However, the "weepies" have been reevaluated( and the Americana films may be reevaluated as well).Sirk is now seen as one of the most significant American directors of the fifties, and, perhaps, as one of the hundred greatest directors of all time. Imitation of Life was his last Hollywood pictures, and one of his best. I call this film, "Canned goods as caviar", because it is an example of taking a "low brow" genre and transforming it into art. Sure, the music is melodramatic, sure the performances by Gavin and Turner are somewhat contrived), sure, the story is campy, but Sirk in his genius transforms melodrama into a scathing critique of materialism, conformity, and racism. Sirk was no cynic, but a rigorous moralist-a superbly educated and sensitive man, steeped in European and American literature.

One of the most astonishing-and misunderstood- elements in this picture is the incandescent performance by Juanita Moore. Moore achieves what is almost impossible; she portrays human goodness. Ican rarely think of a time when an American film has more saintly, more purely Christian figure.

In Coney Island, the widow aspiring actress Lora Meredith (Lana Turner) finds her six-year-old daughter Susie playing with eight-year-old Sarah Jane, who is the daughter of the black homeless housekeeping Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore). Lora brings Annie and her daughter to live in her small apartment in New York and they become close friends.

Lora has a love affair with the photographer Steve Archer (John Gavin) and sooner he proposes her. But the ambitious Lora dreams on becoming a star in Broadway and prioritizes her career and also neglects Susie (Sandra Dee). The light-skinned Sarah Jones (Susan Kohner) rejects her mother and tries to pass as white for her friends.

Lora is well-succeeded in her career and reaches stardom. Ten years later, she meets Steve by chance and he gives attention to Susie while Lora is shooting a film in Italy. When she returns, she decides to get married with Steve; but Susie has fallen in love with Steve. Meanwhile Sarah Jane run away home to work in fleshpots.

"Imitation of Life" is Douglas Sirk's last melodrama with an engaging and emotional story with romance, ambition, friendship, love and rejection. The drama of Annie that is rejected by her daughter, in a time when color of people was a watershed, is heartbreaking and the best subplot. I do not recall any other film from this period that brings the division in the American society between black and white people so clearly. Susan Kohner has an impressive performance in the role of an outcast girl that does not accept the way the society treats black people but prefers to deny her color. The sequence in the alley where she is beaten up by her boyfriend reflects the mentality of the American society in those years. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Imitação da Vida" ("Imitation of Life")