“Out of this [story], Sirk created a magnificent, obsessive, consummately ironic essay on blindness and anxiety. Ever the anguished ironist, observer of the hollowness of middle-class ideals, Sirk’s idyllic color vistas might seem to callously mock his heroine’s blindness. But it is us he is mocking: playing on our pity, he creates a metaphor for our fear.” –Judy Bloch
“If I had to stage MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION as a play I wouldn’t have survived. It is a combination of kitsch and craziness and trashiness. But craziness is very important, and it saves trashy stuff like MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION. This is the dialectic – there is a very short distance between high art and trash, and trash that contains the element of craziness is by this very quality nearer to art.” –Douglas Sirk
–Thursday, January 29 at 9:00 and Saturday, January 31 at 6:30.