Frequently Bought Together
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product details
|
Reviews
Amazon.co.uk Review
The last film in Hollywood of director Douglas Sirk (Written on the Wind), the 1959 Imitation of Life--an adaptation of Fannie Hurst's novel--is an endlessly fascinating film that speaks volumes about the American journey toward materialism and the racial tensions that are inseparable from it. Lana Turner plays a white single mother and aspiring actress who takes in a black housekeeper (Juanita Moore) and her daughter (played by an adolescent Susan Kohner), the latter so light-skinned she passes for white. As the years pass and success mounts for Turner, Moore also becomes more comfortable but her status as a domestic never changes. Meanwhile, Kohner's character, chafing against social constraints, rebels at every opportunity and throws a wrench into the perfect order Sirk chillingly captures through the precise, architectural design of his images. On one hand a '50s weepie and on the other a daring allegory, Imitation of Life is an unusual masterpiece. --Tom Keogh
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
43 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This is quite possibly my favourite film of all time. I have waited for years for this to come out on DVD.
Lana Turner is a joy to watch as the ambitious single mother who sacrifices her once close relationship with her daughter for fame. Juanita Moore is equally entrancing as her lifetime companion, who is disowned by an ungrateful daughter, ashamed of her black roots. The women and their daughters are thrown together by loneliness and go on to share an unbreakable bond.
The male supporting roles are also excellently played, but the screen belongs to Turner and Moore.
Unforgettable cinema magic.
Lana Turner is a joy to watch as the ambitious single mother who sacrifices her once close relationship with her daughter for fame. Juanita Moore is equally entrancing as her lifetime companion, who is disowned by an ungrateful daughter, ashamed of her black roots. The women and their daughters are thrown together by loneliness and go on to share an unbreakable bond.
The male supporting roles are also excellently played, but the screen belongs to Turner and Moore.
Unforgettable cinema magic.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Rarely do films such as this come along.
Perfectly measured emotion, evocative and heart-wrenching, this masterpiece delivers one of the finest cinematograpic experiences I've ever had. Annie's selfless devotion to her daughter is met with ambivalent disreguard from her daughter in aspiring to be freed from her mixed heritage. Carrying brilliantly the weighty issues of racial discrimination and unrequisited love, this film is an unsung masterpiece. If you aren't seriously marked by this film then you really must be hewn from a block of granite.
Mandatory viewing for anyone with any slight of emotion - a painful but compulsive lesson in life
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
A lovely tearjerker in beautiful colour. Lana Turner is fabulous, and relative newcomer Juanita Moore gives her a run for her money, stealing a few scenes with warm dignity.
Made in 1959, this film forms a link from the 'women's films' of the 1940s to today's 'chick flicks'. There is Feminism here, before anybody used the word. Friendship between women is an important theme running right through film. Career is more important to the main character than romance for much of the movie, and she does carve out a very successful living as an actress on Broadway. The racial issues in the plot are dealt with as openly and sensitively as they could have back then.
You can call it sentimental and maybe you are right, but it really hits the spot. I defy anyone with a heart not to be moved when Mahalia Jackson sings.
Made in 1959, this film forms a link from the 'women's films' of the 1940s to today's 'chick flicks'. There is Feminism here, before anybody used the word. Friendship between women is an important theme running right through film. Career is more important to the main character than romance for much of the movie, and she does carve out a very successful living as an actress on Broadway. The racial issues in the plot are dealt with as openly and sensitively as they could have back then.
You can call it sentimental and maybe you are right, but it really hits the spot. I defy anyone with a heart not to be moved when Mahalia Jackson sings.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Imitation of Life
Classic weepy. Great afternoon movie to watch with my girls. It was as good as I remembered. Will now need to order Madame X.
Published 15 days ago by ellliotness
makes the genre work ...
The acting in this film by Lana Turner and Juanita Moore is of such a high order that it is impossible to resist the pull of the film. Read more
Published 3 months ago by schumann_bg
big actor's cinema
"Imitation of life" is a true actor's picture, with big emotions and problems that belong to a time that has gone by. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Dr. Anatol Eschelmueller
"A life without love is an imitation of life"
The bond between two single mothers, one black and one white, and their daughters is the subject of this wonderful movie. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Kona
Imitation of life
Watched this as a kid and didnt know the name. I cried then and saw it on tv and cried again. After watching it on tv I discovered the name and ordered it. I cried again. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Ms Boo
very happy
Having searched long and hard to find this film for my elderly uncle I was pleased to at last track it down. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Jean Hagon
So long before "Guess who's coming to dinner tonight?"
This film is completely different in many ways from all the others because it reaches an extremely high level of density, a tremendous depth of compassion and empathy. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Jacques COULARDEAU
A three hanky movie
Lane Turner plays widowed Lora who is just starting out as an actress. When she meets Annie (played by Juanita Moore), who comes to work as her housekeeper, it seems a perfect... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Four Violets
Memories of my Mother
As this is a film about mothers and daughters it was appropriate that the first time I saw it was in the 1960's, taken by my mother, a huge Lana Turner fan, to our local Odeon. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Jennifer Trathan
The Imitation of Life DVD
This film is excellent good acting within the cast Michalia Jackson vocals within the catherdal did not leave a dry eye in our home. Read more
Published 20 months ago by motordome
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
