Imitation Of Life Sparknotes

Douglas Sirk’s 1959 drama ‘Imitation of Life’ is a drama that explores being a woman in a patriarchal society. He explores women beyond their sex, he explores women in the roles as mothers, women as widows and beyond that he explores what it’s like being a woman, widow, mother and POC in a white, male dominated society. Racial identity plays a big role in the narrative and development of the film which focuses on the difficulties that two very different women face, when trying to live an independent life whilst raising their children.

Sarah Jane, who is portrayed as a teenager by Susan Kohner, is a young black woman passing as white. In my opinion Sarah Jane is both a victim and a hero in this narrative, she suffers through the rejection

The film has several scene’s that a modern audience would find very shocking, however for an audience watching the film back in 1957 this sort of language would have been more common place i.e. the sequence between Annie and Sarah Jane when Annie comes to say farewell. The tension in this scene builds from the moment Annie enters the scene, it comes to a climax as they both express their love for each other and then in enters her co-worker. The blocking of the frame puts up a wall between Annie and Sarah Jane yet again as she inches away from her mother to not be recognised as being her daughter.

During this instance her co-worker assumes that Annie being black must therefore be the maid, assuming women of colour can only work low paying jobs and that there is no other reason for Annie to be in Sarah Janes room. Ultimately Annie set’s her daughter free by explaining she once looked after Sarah Jane, a story that seems plausible to her co-worker simply because Annie is black.

Going back to the framing of this scene, from the very instance Annie enters the room there is a block between Annie and Sarah Jane that generates a visual boundary, enforcing the emotional boundaries that are between mother and daughter. Sirk is very clever about how he composes and shoots the film, each shot has different meanings that express how the characters are feeling – without the use of