Screening report

of the English of the Concerned 27 September All that Heaven Allows by Douglas Sirk The 1955 melodrama, All that Heaven Allows directed by Douglas Sirk and worked on by the celebrated cinematographer, Russell Metty is typically an apt example of really ingenious and creative cinematography.
The one cinematographic aspect that is pervasive in All that Heaven Allows is the usage of an appropriate color palette, mostly affiliated to bold colors, with respect to the set design and the wardrobe, to signify and delineate the dynamics of the characters’ relationship to each other. For instance, Russell Metty portrays the split between the main character Cary and her progeny through the juxtaposition of warm and cool colors and presenting shadowed faces.
As Sirk intended All that Heaven Allows to be a critic of the conventional American values, the movie successfully resorts to the exploitation of appropriate angles of vision, to accentuate this theme. The movie typically opens up with a high-angle shot of a cold and aloof church spire in New England, thereby making the values symbolized by it that governed the lives of the people inhabiting that town look petty, insignificant and flimsy.
The other theme that the director intended to accentuate was the literal and thematic asphyxiation of Cary, by the dominant social norms and values. Metty successfully managed to visually develop this theme by resorting to placing frames within frames. Many a times the main character Cary is shown to be positioned within frames, as behind the windowpanes or the foreboding reflection of Cary in the television set, symbolizing and pointing towards her metaphorical and actual entombment.