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Far From Heaven
''Far from Heaven'' is a 2002 historical romantic drama film written and directed by Todd Haynes and starring Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Dennis Haysbert and Patricia Clarkson. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where Moore won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress, and cinematographer Edward Lachman won a prize for Outstanding Individual Contribution. The film tells the story of Cathy Whitaker, a 1950s housewife, living in wealthy suburban Connecticut as she sees her seemingly perfect life begin to fall apart. Haynes pays homage to the films of Douglas Sirk (especially 1955's '' All That Heaven Allows'', 1956's '' Written on the Wind'', and 1959's '' Imitation of Life''), and explores race, gender roles, sexual orientation, and class in the context of 1950s America. ''Far from Heaven'' received numerous accolades, including four Academy Award nominations. For her performance, Moore was nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars, Golden Globes, and Screen Actors Guild, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Todd Haynes
Todd Haynes (; born January 2, 1961) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. His films span four decades with themes examining the personalities of well-known musicians, dysfunctional and dystopian societies, and blurred gender roles. Haynes first gained public attention with his controversial short film ''Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story'' (1987), which chronicles singer Karen Carpenter's life and death using Barbie dolls as actors. ''Superstar'' became a cult classic. His feature directorial debut, ''Poison (1991 film), Poison'' (1991), a provocative exploration of AIDS-era perceptions and subversions, established him as a figure of a new transgressive cinema. ''Poison'' won the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize. Haynes received further acclaim for his second feature film, ''Safe (1995 film), Safe'' (1995), a symbolic portrait of a housewife who develops multiple chemical sensitivity. ''Safe'' was later voted the best film of the 1990s by Village ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Historical Romance
Historical romance is a broad category of mass-market fiction focusing on romantic relationships in historical periods, which Lord Byron, Byron helped popularize in the early 19th century. The genre often takes the form of the novel. Varieties Viking Vikings, Viking books feature warriors during the Dark Ages (historiography), Dark Ages or Middle Ages. Heroes in Viking romances are stereotypically masculine men who are later "tamed" by their heroines. Most heroes are described as "tall, blonde, and strikingly handsome." Using the Viking culture allows novels set in these time periods to include some travel, as the Vikings were "adventurers, founding and conquering colonies all over the globe." In a 1997 poll of over 200 readers of Viking romances, Johanna Lindsey's ''Fires of Winter'' was considered the best of the subgenre. The subgenre has fallen out of style, and few novels in this vein have been published since the mid-1990s. Medieval Medieval romances are typically set b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The Oscars are widely considered to be the most prestigious awards in the film industry. The major award categories, known as the Academy Awards of Merit, are presented during a live-televised Hollywood ceremony in February or March. It is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony. The 1st Academy Awards were held in 1929. The second ceremony, in 1930, was the first one broadcast by radio. The 1953 ceremony was the first one televised. It is the oldest of the four major annual American entertainment awards. Its counterparts—the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music—are modeled after the Academy Aw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of The United States (1945–1964)
The history of the United States from 1945 to 1964 was a time of high economic growth and general prosperity. It was also a time of confrontation as the capitalist United States and its allies politically opposed the Soviet Union and other communist states; the Cold War had begun. African Americans united and organized, and a triumph of the civil rights movement ended Jim Crow segregation in the Southern United States. Further laws were passed that made discrimination illegal and provided federal oversight to guarantee voting rights. In the period, an active foreign policy was pursued to help Western Europe and Asia recover from the devastation of World War II. The Marshall Plan helped Western Europe rebuild from wartime devastation. The main American goal was the Containment of communism. An arms race escalated through increasingly powerful nuclear weapons. The Soviets formed the Warsaw Pact of European satellites to oppose the American-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Class
A social class or social stratum is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the working class and the Bourgeoisie, capitalist class. Membership of a social class can for example be dependent on education, wealth, occupation, income, and belonging to a particular subculture or social network. Class is a subject of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists and Social history, social historians. The term has a wide range of sometimes conflicting meanings, and there is no broad consensus on a definition of class. Some people argue that due to social mobility, class boundaries do not exist. In common parlance, the term social class is usually synonymous with Socioeconomic status, socioeconomic class, defined as "people having the same social, economic, cultural, political or educational status", e.g. the working class, "an emerging professional class" etc. However, academics distinguish socia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sexual Orientation
Sexual orientation is an enduring personal pattern of romantic attraction or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. Patterns are generally categorized under heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality, while asexuality (experiencing no sexual attraction to others) is sometimes identified as the fourth category. These categories are aspects of the more nuanced nature of sexual identity and terminology. For example, people may use other labels, such as '' pansexual'' or '' polysexual'', or none at all. According to the American Psychological Association, sexual orientation "also refers to a person's sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in a community of others who share those attractions". ''Androphilia'' and ''gynephilia'' are terms used in behavioral science to describe sexual orientation as an alternative to a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gender Roles
A gender role, or sex role, is a social norm deemed appropriate or desirable for individuals based on their gender or sex. Gender roles are usually centered on conceptions of masculinity and femininity. The specifics regarding these gendered expectations may vary among cultures, while other characteristics may be common throughout a range of cultures. In addition, gender roles (and perceived gender roles) vary based on a person's race or ethnicity. Gender roles influence a wide range of human behavior, often including the clothing a person chooses to wear, the profession a person pursues, manner of approach to things, the personal relationships a person enters, and how they behave within those relationships. Although gender roles have evolved and expanded, they traditionally keep women in the "private" sphere, and men in the "public" sphere. Various groups, most notably feminist movements, have led efforts to change aspects of prevailing gender roles that they believe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Race (classification Of Human Beings)
Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 16th century, when it was used to refer to groups of various kinds, including those characterized by close kinship relations. By the 17th century, the term began to refer to physical (phenotypical) traits, and then later to national affiliations. Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. While partly based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning. The concept of race is foundational to racism, the belief that humans can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. Social conceptions and groupings of races have varied over time, often involving folk taxonomies that define essential types of individuals based on perceived traits. Modern scientist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imitation Of Life (1959 Film)
''Imitation of Life'' (1959) is an American melodrama film directed by Douglas Sirk, produced by Ross Hunter and released by Universal International. It was Sirk's final Hollywood film and dealt with issues of race, class and gender. ''Imitation of Life'' is the second film adaptation of Fannie Hurst's 1933 novel of the same title ( the first, directed by John M. Stahl, was released in 1934). The film's top-billed stars are Lana Turner and John Gavin. The cast also features Robert Alda, Sandra Dee, Susan Kohner, Juanita Moore, and Dan O'Herlihy, in alphabetical order. Kohner and Moore each received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Supporting Actress for their performances. Kohner won the Globe award. Gospel music star Mahalia Jackson appears as a church choir soloist. In 2015, the United States Library of Congress selected ''Imitation of Life'' (1959) for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically sign ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Written On The Wind
''Written on the Wind'' is a 1956 American Southern Gothic melodrama film directed by Douglas Sirk and starring Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone. It follows the complicated relationships among dysfunctional family members of a Texas oil dynasty: its alcoholic heir, his wife (a former secretary for the family company), his childhood best friend, and his ruthless, self-destructive sister. The screenplay by George Zuckerman was based on Robert Wilder's 1946 novel of the same title, a thinly disguised account (or ''roman à clef'') of the real-life scandal involving torch singer Libby Holman and her husband, tobacco heir Zachary Smith Reynolds, who was killed under mysterious circumstances at his family estate in 1932. A film version of the novel was optioned by RKO Pictures and International Pictures in 1946, but the project was shelved because of threats from the Reynolds family. Universal Pictures acquired the rights to the novel after absorbing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
All That Heaven Allows
''All That Heaven Allows'' is a 1955 American melodrama film directed by Douglas Sirk, produced by Ross Hunter, and adapted by Peg Fenwick from a novel by Edna L. Lee and Harry Lee. It stars Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson in a tale about the social complications that arise following the development of a romance between a well-to-do widow and a younger poorer man. In 1995, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Plot Cary Scott is an affluent widow in the town of Stoningham, in suburban New England, whose social life revolves around the weekend visits of her college-age son and daughter, her best friend's country-club activities, and a few men vying for her affection. Feeling stuck in a rut, she becomes interested in Ron Kirby, her arborist. He is an intelligent, down-to-earth, and respectful, yet passionate, younger man, and she discovers he is content with his simple life outside the materialistic society in which they live. Ron introduce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas Sirk
Douglas Sirk (born Hans Detlef Sierck; 26 April 1897 – 14 January 1987) was a German film director best known for his work in Hollywood (film industry), Hollywood melodramas of the 1950s. However, he also directed comedies, westerns, and war films. Sirk started his career in Weimar Republic, Germany as a stage and screen director, but he left for Hollywood in 1937 after his Jewish wife was persecuted by the Nazis. In the 1950s, he achieved his greatest commercial success with Melodrama (film genre), film melodramas ''Magnificent Obsession (1954 film), Magnificent Obsession'', ''All That Heaven Allows'', ''Written on the Wind'', ''A Time to Love and a Time to Die'', and ''Imitation of Life (1959 film), Imitation of Life''. While those films were initially panned by critics as sentimental women's pictures, they are today widely regarded by film directors, critics, and scholars as masterpieces. His work is seen as a "critique of the bourgeoisie in general and of 1950s America in p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
