Editing Douglas Sirk (section)

==Reputation and legacy==
===Contemporary reception===
Sirk's melodramas of the 1950s, while highly commercially successful, were generally very poorly received by reviewers. His films were considered unimportant (because they revolve around female and domestic issues), banal (because of their focus on larger-than-life feelings) and unrealistic (because of their conspicuous and distinctive style). Their often melodramatic manner was viewed by critics as being in bad taste.<ref name="OUP"/>

===Later reception===
Attitudes toward Sirk's films changed drastically in the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s as his work was re-examined by French, American, and British critics.<ref name="OUP"/> As [[Jean-Luc Godard]] wrote in his review of ''A Time to Love and a Time to Die'' (1958), "...I am going to write a madly enthusiastic review of Douglas Sirk's latest film, simply because it set my cheeks afire."<ref>{{cite book
 | last = Godard
 | first = Jean-Luc
 | author-link =Jean-Luc Godard
 | year = 1986
 | title = Godard on Godard: Critical Writings by Jean-Luc Godard
 | publisher = Da Capo Press
 | location = New York
}}</ref>

The major critical reappraisal of Sirk began in France with the April 1967 issue of ''[[Cahiers du cinéma]]'', which included an extended interview with Sirk by [[Serge Daney]] and Jean-Louis Noames, an appreciation by [[Jean-Louis Comolli]] ("The Blind Man and the Mirror or The Impossible Cinema of Douglas Sirk"), and a "biofilmographie" compiled by Patrick Brion and Dominique Rabourdin.<ref>[http://sensesofcinema.com/2004/great-directors/sirk/ Tom Ryan, "Douglas Sirk", Senses of Cinema]</ref> Leading American critic [[Andrew Sarris]] praised Sirk in his 1968 book ''The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929–1968'', although Sirk failed to qualify for Sarris' controversial "pantheon" of great directors.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.theyshootpictures.com/sarriscategories.htm |title=TSPDT-Andrew Sarris: Director Categories from "The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968" |access-date=19 June 2019 |archive-date=31 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210731080405/https://www.theyshootpictures.com/sarriscategories.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> From around 1970 there was a burgeoning interest among academic film scholars for Sirk's work - especially his American melodramas. The seminal work in this field was [[Jon Halliday]]'s book-length interview, ''Sirk on Sirk'' (1971) which presented Sirk as "... a sophisticated intellectual, a filmmaker who arrived in Hollywood with a very clear vision, leaving behind him an established career in German theatre and film".

Several major revival seasons of Sirk's films followed over the next few years, including a 20-film retrospective at the 1972 [[Edinburgh Festival]] (which Sirk attended), which also generated a book of essays. In 1974 the [[University of Connecticut]] Film Society programmed a complete retrospective of the director's American films, and invited Sirk to attend, but on the way to the airport, for the flight to New York, Sirk suffered a haemorrhage that seriously impaired the vision in his left eye.

Analyses of Sirk's work, with their emphases on aspects of Sirk's formerly-criticized style, revealed an oblique criticism of American society hidden beneath a banal facade of plotting conventional for the era - Sirk's films were now seen as masterpieces of irony.<ref name="OUP"/> The criticism of the 1970s and early 1980s was dominated by an ideological take on Sirk's work, gradually changing from Marxist-inspired visions in the early 1970s, to a focus on gender and sexuality in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Film critic [[Roger Ebert]] has said, "To appreciate a film like ''Written on the Wind'' probably takes more sophistication to understand than one of [[Ingmar Bergman]]'s masterpieces, because Bergman's themes are visible and underlined, while with Sirk the style conceals the message."<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F19980118%2FREVIEWS08%2F401010373%2F1023 |title=:: rogerebert.com :: Great Movies :: Written on the Wind (xhtml)<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=28 July 2007 |archive-date=12 March 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130312022156/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F19980118%2FREVIEWS08%2F401010373%2F1023 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Sirk's reputation was also helped by a widespread nostalgia for old-fashioned Hollywood films in the 1970s.<ref>{{cite book
 | last = Klinger
 | first = Barbara
 | year = 1994
 | title = Melodrama and Meaning: history, culture, and the films of Douglas Sirk
 | publisher = Indiana University Press
 | location = Bloomington, IN
}}</ref> His work is now widely considered to show excellent control of visuals, extending from lighting and framing to costumes and sets that are saturated with symbolism and shot through with subtle barbs of irony.<ref>[https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/movie-of-the-week-written-on-the-wind Movie of the Week: "Written on the Wind"|The New Yorker]</ref><ref>[https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/dvd-of-the-week-all-that-heaven-allows DVD of the Week: All That Heaven Allows|The New Yorker]</ref>