"Sirk knows how to deal with actors - it’s staggering. If you look at the last films of Fritz Lang, made around the same time, where the worst sort of incompetence manifests itself, you know what you have when you have Douglas Sirk in your head, right? In Douglas Sirk’s movies the women think. I haven’t noticed that wi… Read more

"Sirk knows how to deal with actors - it’s staggering. If you look at the last films of Fritz Lang, made around the same time, where the worst sort of incompetence manifests itself, you know what you have when you have Douglas Sirk in your head, right? In Douglas Sirk’s movies the women think. I haven’t noticed that with any other director. With any. Usually the women just react, do the things women do, and here they actually think. That’s something you’ve got to see. It’s wonderful to see a woman thinking. That gives you hope. Honest." — Fassbinder, Rainer Werner. “Imitation of Life: Über Douglas Sirk.” Fernsehen und Film 2 (1971) It's pretty much the same, with many of the (self-) portraits made by Ash LaRose. But that is only one aspect.