Popular reviews

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 4

  It struck me while watching this that the homophobic nature of Hollywood/the explicit homophobia of the Hays Code that forced directors to turn queer characters into mere subtext had the unintended effect of turning every close male friendship into a gay relationship in hiding, thus in the modern era, erasing male camaraderie (to those who look for this sort of thing) instead of erasing homosexuality, as they had done in the past. This is just an extension of the patriarchal/heterosexist power, which extinguishes masculine vulnerability, emotional honesty, and, of course, LGBT all at once, but it stood out to me as a notable side effect in pop culture.

  There's a few strong moments that stood out to indicate that the…

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  Review by Peter Labuza ★★★★ 3

  One of the major Sirks for good reason, starting with an almost surrealist beginning and ending with the leaves blowing their way into the house—you can almost feel like it’s the wind pulling the trigger. Classic Sirkian narrative—insiders vs. outsiders, public display vs. private desires, but this is at least the only one I’ve seen that takes place exclusively amongst a community of upper class family (complete with prison gates to the entrance). The idea that Sirk is a master of high irony strikes me as somewhat dubious (Sarris here: “Where John Stahl transcended the lachrymose dramas of Imitation of Life and Magnificent Obsession through the force of his naive sincerity, Sirk transformed the same plots in hilarious comedies through…

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 2

  85

  The easy way out with Written on the Wind, or with any Sirk film, really, is to give in to its camp, to fall head over heels in love with its absurd flourishes and soap opera artifice. But the confines of this upper-class story is less of a stylistic choice than it is a necessary surface layer for its vivid expressionism. The distance that Douglas Sirk allows us, the viewer, to experience while so fully immersing the characters in this toxic bubble of psychological repression is fascinating, mainly because the image-making is quite simple, allowing its complexity to spill over into striking configurations of fashion and space. Here, the social malaise is merely a given a Technicolor pop, for what the characters convey is far more devastating and vague in comparison.

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  Review by eely ★★★

  every single person in this movie wakes up in the morning and says “what’s the most dramatic thing i can get away with today?”

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  Review by fran hoepfner ★★★★★

  NOW IN TECHNICOLOR: I’M ALWAYS MAD AT MY ONE FRIEND

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  Review by KYK ★★★★ 2

  PARDON ME if i seem to be brushing you out of my hair 

  35mm. MoMA.

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  Review by comrade_yui ★★★★★ 4

  douglas sirk's red desert; i live for the messy tragedy here, how sirk just plays it to the hilt of how far he can push the tonality of a 50s studio picture without the entire frame collapsing. watching this one particularly showed me how essential a figure like rock hudson is here -- his stoic normalcy allows us to truly grasp how far-gone everyone else is by comparison. peak trash, the highest elevation of soap-opera theatrics made with consummate expertise and intelligence.

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  Review by Bruno Andrade ★★★★½ 1

  Some critics talk about Written on the Wind as if it were a realistic film.

  No, it’s even a kind of surrealism. The people are heightened versions of reality—not realistic characters. [Laughs] A European would say, “Strange people these Americans”—if he took it as naturalism.

  Above all in its lighting and colors, it is a non-realistic film. Fassbinder wrote a very perceptive thing about my style—he spoke of the craziness of my lighting. He points out that my lighting is never realistic, almost never from where the real light source would be. I was pleased that he saw that.

  Remember—Written on the Wind is basically one set. By this very fact then, I am investing—I am contriving to paint with…

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  Review by Criterion 1

  Douglas Sirk’s Technicolor expressionism reached a fever pitch with this operatic tragedy, which finds the director pushing his florid visuals and his critiques of American culture to their subversive extremes. Alcoholism, nymphomania, impotence, and deadly jealousy—these are just some of the toxins coursing through a massively wealthy, degenerate Texan oil family. When a sensible secretary (Lauren Bacall) has the misfortune of marrying the clan’s neurotic scion (Robert Stack), it drives a wedge between him and his lifelong best friend (Rock Hudson) that unleashes a maelstrom of psychosexual angst and fury.

  This edition arrives on February 1, 2022. To learn more or pre-order, visit Criterion.com.

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  Review by Jacob Knight ★★★★★ 3

  "To beauty, to truth which is anything but beautiful."

  Sirk's grand Texan tragedy is possibly greater than any of his melodramas; a sultry, funny, and heartbreaking descent into his usual obsessions with public faces and private desires. But his total disinterest in both Hudson and Bacall's characters seems purposeful, as their do-gooders are mere gateways into sordid Hadley (both the town, and the family), as Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone's destructive brother and sister duo do near cosmic amounts of psychic damage to everyone around them. Stack is wonderful, but Malone is a rocket of raw sexuality unlike anything contained in Sirk's filmography - a temptress whose evil charms almost seem supernaturally charged. Before tonight, I was convinced ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS was his ultimate masterpiece. Now I'm not so sure. [35mm]

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  Review by ScreeningNotes ★★★★★

  ”Love you? I don’t even love myself.”

  Repressed emotion bursting though the seams of normative social fabric; emerging as violence, physical and psychological

  Douglas Sirk

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  Review by Meaghan⚰️ ★★★★½

  just a dude losing his mind thinking about his best friend's robust sperm count, nothing to see here!