José Bértolo, Fernando Guerreiro, Clara Rowland - Imitações Da Vida: Cinema Clássico Americano

"Imitações da Vida" has the merit of being written not only for cinephiles but above all for all great spectators of classic American cinema.

The title of this book, Imitações da Vida, is an evident evocation of Imitation of Life, the 1959 film by Douglas Sirk, which represents, for the professor and film critic honored in this volume, the ultimate paradigm of the melodrama in Classic American Cinema.All the essays gathered here—featuring different styles, themes, and cinematic obsessions—are, undeniably, essays for Mário Jorge Torres. And yet, especially for those who had the privilege of discovering cinema through his teachings, or for those who read him in newspapers for years on end, these are also essays written from Mário Jorge Torres—texts indebted to his revealing gaze, his dramatic enthusiasm, where that subversive idea suggested by the book’s very title resides: the boundaries between art and life are tenuous—we almost always imitate the projections of the big screen.