Magnificent obsession [NTSC]

Through exaggerated coincidence and accompanying catastrophe, the mark of melodrama, a playboy becomes a surgeon and secret devotee of a form of Christianity as he seeks to atone for the death of a philanthropic doctor and the subsequent blindness of the doctor’s wife, indirect results of events for which he is responsible. Sirk does not parody this implausible material but mines it for irony by bringing out the irrational aspect - the obsession with vision on different levels. Irony here results from a playing on oppositions, even contradictions, just beneath the surface (e.g. one dies so another can live). This heightening (a kind of ‘madness’) is achieved through mise en scene: a sense of cultural decadence (the glossy surfaces of middle America) is played off against emotionalism, innocent energy deflected by the emergence of conscience. Originally filmed in Technicolor with lavish cinematography by Russell Metty. Based on the novel by Lloyd C. Douglas. Cast includes Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Barbara Rush, Agnes Moorehead and Otto Kruger.