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MovieMail's Review
Rarely has critical reception turned such a volte-face as in the case of Douglas Sirk, a German director who arrived in Hollywood in the 1940s and over the next two decades made a succession of lavish melodramas. Derided by contemporary critics as trashy “women’s pictures” (although all his films were huge commercial successes), it was not until European directors such as Godard and Fassbinder acclaimed his features that critics began to take him seriously, and he is now regarded as one of the most trenchant observers of human nature in cinema.
Sirk’s Written On The Wind is a case in point. It details the decline of the Hadley dynasty, following the marriage of Kyle (Robert Stack), the son of the family, to Lucy (Lauren Bacall), a noble secretary who genuinely loves her husband and doesn’t care about his immense fortune. Kyle’s jealousy of his surrogate brother (Rock Hudson) soon leads to his own destruction, aided by his vindictive sister, Marylee (Dorothy Malone), the Iago of the film.
The obviously artificial sets, hyperbolic performances and torrid dialogue (Kyle: “You’re a filthy liar” Marylee: “I’m filthy – period!”) are distancing techniques for the audience – Sirk, like Brecht, wants us to examine the message behind the images, and these moments of alienation draw attention to the artificiality of cinema, and the superficiality of affluent American life. Although Hudson and Bacall are the nominal leads, Sirk seems more interested in the flawed characters played by Stack and Malone (the latter winning an Oscar for her role). Unable to adapt to their materialistic society, they have been corrupted by it.
Sirk’s films appeal to almost everyone – they can be enjoyed as escapist soap operas or as savage critiques, depending on the viewer’s preference. Pedro Almodovar said of the film: “I have seen Written on the Wind a thousand times, and I cannot wait to see it again.”
One of Sirk's best films from the 1950s, in which a millionaire playboy is driven to self-destruction through alcohol and impotence. Bathed in lurid Technicolour.
