Sirk in Germany: Weimar theatre and Nazi cinema
Born in Germany in
1897 of Danish parents Douglas Sirk (Detlef Sierck) received a classical
education in Copenhagen and studied law, philosophy and the history of art in
Germany after World War I. He became a theatre director in 1922 when in his
mid-twenties, directing audacious modern plays
by leftist authors including Brecht, Georg Kaiser and Friedrich
Wolf but also plays by their political
adversaries and plays by Shakespeare (in his own translations), Sophocles,
Strindberg, Ibsen, Shaw and Goethe. After taking up a position in Leipzig
Sierck encountered a more difficult political atmosphere with Nazi brown shirts
outside the theatre and in the audience for the premiere of an opera by Kurt
Weill and Georg Kaiser which was cancelled after the Nazis won the national
elections in March 1933. He began to direct a repertoire dictated by the Nazis.
In 1934 with his choice and direction of modernist plays increasingly
attracting unfavourable attention, Sierck joined Ufa, Germany's largest film
company, the film industry being less rigidly controlled than the theatre.
From 1935-37 Sierck
directed eight features including Stutzen der Gesellschaft/Pillars Of
Society (1935) based on an Ibsen play which is regarded as one of the best
literary adaptations of the period in Germany. Schlussakkord/Final Chord
(1936) is a melodrama Sirk regarded as important because it was the first
film in which he fully engaged with cinema in realising that “motion is
emotion,” casting off his literary and theatrical background in writing the
screenplay and directing with stylish bravura, returning to his early
impressions of cinema as a child. It includes a wealth of musical material
including large sections of a concert performance of Beethoven's Ninth and won
the prize for best musical film at the Venice Biennale. Zu neuen Ufern/To
New Shores and La Habanera (1937) established the Swedish
actress Zarah Leander as Germany's new star to replace Garbo and Dietrich. Set
in Australia with an anti-colonial theme, Ufern has been described by Jon
Halliday as “stylistically one of the most extraordinary films ever – not just
in the combination of music, songs and dialogue in the tradition of Brecht and
Weill but in the assemblage of contrasts, of light, of class, of
geography”. It was received with great
acclaim at its premiere in Berlin.
Both films, surprisingly tough politically,
were shot in an 'exotic' style comparable to that of Josef von Sternberg. Like Ufern,
La Habanera is a melodrama with music integrated into the narrative, set in
Puerto Rico (but filmed in Spain) with an anti-capitalist theme. Sierck was not
allowed to make Pylon or The Shooting Party at Ufa because
they were considered too pessimistic, not what was wanted. He subsequently made
both into films in America. Nevertheless Sirk said that he “learned a lot at
Ufa” and always concerned himself fully with the technical aspects of the craft
so that he “rarely looked through the camera” and he could tell the cameraman
exactly what lens he wanted to use because he could judge exactly the distance
and adjustment for movement (interview with Michael Stern). See also Critical Backlash – Part 10 for
further discussion of Sierck and Nazi cinema.
 |
| Zu neuen Ufern |
Sierck's first wife,
Lydia Brinken, became a Nazi. They were divorced and Sierck lost access to his
son whom he never saw again except on the screen – Klaus-Detlef Sierck became
Germany's leading child actor and a member of the Hitler Youth. When Ufa came
directly under state ownership in 1937 the atmosphere became increasingly
repressive and Sierck left Germany in December 1938 and joined his wife, Jewish
actress Hildegarde Jary, who had left earlier. He began a long search for work,
initially with limited success in France and Holland, ultimately arriving in
Hollywood at the end of 1939 on an invitation from Warner Bros. The studio soon terminated his contract and for
a time Sierck and his wife ran a chicken farm they established in the San
Fernando Valley and later an alfalfa farm. Sierk was acquainted with the
Hollywood colony of German exiles including Thomas Mann, Max Reinhardt, Fritz
Lang and Ernst Lubitsch but disliked their almost obsessive contempt for most
things American, preferring the company of “ordinary Americans” who treated the
Siercks with “simple creative generosity.” There was also suspicion in the
exile community because of the eight features he made in Nazi Germany and of
his late emigration. See also Critical Backlash – Part 10.
 |
| La Habanera |
Sirk
in America ((key films in italics))
'The independent years 1943-50: 6 indie
features plus 2 features assigned under contract at Columbia
Assignments at
Universal 1951-2: 7 features
The Universal years
1953-9 with Ross Hunter and Albert Zugsmith: 14 features (10 produced by RH, 2
by AZ)
The 'European'
films: Summer Storm,
A Scandal in Paris, Lured, A Time to Love and a Time to Die
Religious
themes: The First
Legion, Thunder on the Hill, Sign of the Pagan, Battle Hymn
The
'uncomfortable comedies' at Universal: The Lady Pays
Off, Weekend with Father, No Room for the Groom
Americana: Meet Me at the Fair, Take Me to Town,
The
'melodramas': All I
Desire, Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, There's
Always Tomorrow, Written on the Wind, Interlude, The
Tarnished Angels, Imitation of Life
Other: Hitler's Madman, Sleep My Love, Slightly
French, Shockproof, Has Anybody Seen My Gal?, Mystery Submarine, Taza Son of
Cochise, Captain Lightfoot.
