□
[□]
[]
Fassbinder quotes Douglas Sirk as saying " you ca n't make films about something , you can only makes films with something , with people , with light , with flowers , mirrors , with blood , with all these crazy things that make it worthwhile . This film provides Sirk 's clear commentary and critique of the underlying hollowness and shallowness of American society in the placid 1950s , and misfit lives stunted and corrupted by mental anguish , alcoholism , sexual frustration , and corruptible materialistic wealth . ] This was the sixth of eight films that Sirk made with Hudson . Can one imagine Flaubert or Hardy , or , for that matter , Sirk or Josef von Sternberg , making such a comment ? I contrasted to that Fassbinder 's work , but one could cite Douglas Sirk and others .