I got this bargain DVD set of two "Imitation of Life" movies the other day. One is from 1934 with Claudette Colbert and the other is a 1956 version with Lana Turner and Sandra Dee. I'd never seen either, though I'd vaguely heard the title, but I like to take a look at African American women early in film, and each has a fantastic performance by the woman who is best friends with the white woman. Colbert is all wrong in the first film, and the racism is not erased, but rather highlighted by the plot. Delilah is a kind of Aunt Jemima and Colbert takes advantage of her in every way, but the heart of the tragedy is Delilah's daughter being able to pass for white and wishing to do so and hating her mother for being a marker for her blackness. It's shocking, and her mother's wise sadness over this is touching. But in real life people were passing, and these rejections of family history were not uncommon. Louis Beavers, as Delilah, is the best thing in the movie, and brings dignity to the portrait of a woman who understands her daughter's desire to step outside the trap of racism only too well, even though she herself has no chance. She also knows it will end in tragedy.
Lana Turner is also poorly cast (she was an awful actress), but Juanita Moore, as Annie, gets a bigger, more complex role, and as her daughter, Susan, Susan Kohner is given a meaty part and shows us the agony of a girl rejecting her loving mother to find what she hopes is her destiny. The white people are frosting. The story is centered on the compelling tale of passing, and its' costs. This movie is directed by Douglas Sirk, and he knows how to make ordinary lives seem strange.
Anyway, both movies are worth seeing and comparing, and in some ways ahead of their times. It's funny to look back and see what the culture thought were the issues of black people, what white people thought the issues were. With Lena Horne dying last week, I've been thinking a lot about skin color. She was criticized for marrying a white man, though her coloring and features leaned definitely to passing. People who didn't know her wanted her to be a certain way - people both black and white. She was trapped, and she never had the film career she deserved. Even now, a woman who is half white, Halle Berry, is black. She has to embrace the man who wasn't in her life, and keep the white mother who raised her out of the spotlight.
When will we get to a world where you are not judged by skin color? It doesn't look like any time soon. I wonder if it's even possible. But the struggles should be acknowledged. I wish everyone could see Louise Beavers and Juanita Moore. Performances that should have been honored and become legend. It is never too late.
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