Watch: Beautiful Trailer For Film Society of Lincoln Center Series 'Imitations Of Life: The Films Of Douglas Sirk'

During his most productive years in American cinema, German director Douglas Sirk was derided by critics. Sirk began his work in America with inconsequential crime romances and comedies, but by the 1950s he finally hit his stride. Sirk, though, was a man ahead of his time. Much of his best work consisted of domestic melodramas centering around the decaying lives of the ultra rich. He was scoffed at for focusing on women, and his films were reductively considered cinema for women, and thus were unimportant. It wasn’t until nearly a decade after his last film that Sirk’s work was reconsidered (first in France), and was found to substantial, emotional deconstructions of those languishing in excess.

READ MORE: The Essentials: Douglas Sirk

To pay proper tribute to Sirk, Film Society Lincoln Center has put together “Imitations Of Life: The Films Of Douglas Sirk,” a retrospective of 25 of his greatest works to run December 23 - January 6 (most of which will thankfully appear in...