Magnificent Obsession (1954)
Directed by Douglas Sirk
Reckless playboy Bob Merrick crashes his speedboat, requiring emergency attention from the town’s only resuscitator while a local hero, Dr. Phillips, dies waiting for the life-saving device. Merrick then tries to right his wrongs with the doctor’s widow, Helen, falling in love with her in the process.
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What critics compared Magnificent Obsession to
What on Earth (or on any parallel planet of your choice) can contemporary cinema be doing crafting a lush 1950s-set love story, opulently scored, effulgently period-detailed and full of performances so stand-and-emote they might have been born in a Universal Pictures weepie, circa Magnificent Obsession (1954)?
Cinematographer Vanja Cernjul ( Violet & Daisy ) shoots things with a colorful eye for detail, things achieving an almost Technicolor-like splendor that reminded me of Douglas Sirk classics like Written on the Wind and Magnificent Obsession.
Witness the ludicrous piling on of tragedy after tragedy in Magnificent Obsession and you will see what I am getting at.
As most critics have noticed, the plot starts off as a retelling of Douglas Sirk's Magnificent Obsession with a young nightclub singer, Jenny (Yeh), accidentally blinded by a good-hearted, and coolly competent contract killer (Chow).
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Some of the greatest Hollywood melodramas (such as Douglas Sirk’s “Magnificent Obsession”) featured plotlines of an even more extravagant absurdity than that of “Fifty Shades Darker.”
Some close-ups have a megawatt gleam redolent of Douglas Sirk circa Magnificent Obsession (1954).
…cross between Stanley Kubrick's "2001" and Douglas Sirk's delicious 1954 soaper, "Magnificent Obsession," "The Fountain" is moving only as a testament to Aronofsky's determination to get his half-baked vision before the public.In all three stories, Hugh Jackman plays the part of the questing male.