Mad for Melodrama

Things are getting emotional at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image this August. As part of its recurring See It Big! series, the institution is presenting a selection of great Hollywood melodramas, from the 1930s to the 2000s, by such directors as Vincente Minnelli, Nicholas Ray, John Stahl, William Wyler, and many more. Of course, Douglas Sirk is well represented, and the program is launching on Saturday with his exquisite All That Heaven Allows, featuring Jane Wyman as an upper-middle-class widow who falls for her handsome younger gardener, much to the chagrin of her community. Watch a lyrical, expressionistic sequence from the film below to get a sense of Sirk’s artistry.