All That Heaven Allows

SERIES
See It Big!: Hollywood Melodrama

August 2–31, 2014

See It Big! is an ongoing series organized by Reverse Shot editors Michael Koresky and Jeff Reichert, Chief Curator David Schwartz, and Assistant Film Curator Aliza Ma

Emotions are writ large in melodrama, a genre defined by outsized passion, and grand tales of love and death that are almost operatic. It is a genre perfectly suited for classic Hollywood filmmaking, where all the elements of the medium are combined expressively, and the craft of studio filmmaking serves the all-consuming intensity of the stories. This series features the finest work of some of the masters of the form: William Dieterle, Alfred Hitchcock, Ang Lee, Joseph Mankiewicz, Vincente Minnelli, Max Ophuls, Nicholas Ray, Douglas Sirk, Steven Spielberg, John Stahl, and William Wyler.