A Time to Love and a Time to Die: The Masters of Cinema Series

The ascension of Adolf Hitler to power in Germany was a loss to their film industry but that was Hollywood's gain as many talented filmmakers moved to the US and these émigrés formed the backbone of the industry for years to come.  Among those who left Nazi Germany was Detlef Sierck, who Anglicised his name, changing it to Douglas Sirk and, when he died in 1987, left behind a body of work that counts him as one of the great directors.  Predominantly known for his Hollywood melodramas like Written on the Wind, All That Heaven Allows and Imitation of Life, he returned to his birthplace of Hamburg in 1958 to shoot a drama set during the Second World War.
 
Set in 1944, A Time to Love and a Time to Die follows Ernst Gräber, a private in the German army on three weeks leave from fighting on the Eastern Front.  Returning home to look for his parents, Gräber finds Hamburg a bombed-out ruin of a city, prone to frequent air raids and under the control of the Gestapo.  With no sign of his parents, he lives in the barracks and makes daily visits to the neighbourhood where they lived in search of news.  One day he meets Elisabeth, the daughter of their family doctor and the two quickly fall in love, though her father is in a concentration camp and the political climate makes it hard to get any news. 
 

This is based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, who also has a role as a left-wing professor hiding from the authorities, but isn't as vehemently anti-war as All Quiet on the Western Front.  It instead goes for melodrama and the struggles of a normal existence within wartime and what can happen to ordinary people in extraordinary situations - Gräber's childhood friend is an indoctrinated member of the Gestapo who casually illustrates the ease of solving the 'Jewish Problem'.
 
On one hand A Time to Love and a Time to Die is a great film, gorgeously photographed and really well written but, on the other, it fails to convince because of the cast.  John Gavin is about as American as you can get so doesn't really pass as a German soldier and there are so many Americans in the cast (including Keenan Wynn - Major Kong in Dr. Strangelove) that they look like Americans in German uniforms, not German soldiers.  Swiss actress Liselotte Pulver is a different matter, sounding German and putting in a fine performance.
 

The Disc

Video
Masters of Cinema have done a sterling job with the picture as the transfer is nigh-on flawless, showcasing Sirk's trademark brilliance behind the camera.  His use of mise-en-scène is one of the main features of the film and the depiction of the Russian Front and Hamburg are excellent.  The film is presented in the original CinemaScope ratio of 2.35:1 so no panning or scanning or other cropping - you see the film as Sirk intended.
 
Audio
A perfectly clear English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack is the default option but, due to the film's long and successful run in France, a French option is included.  The score is suitably emotive and sentimental and well presented. 

 
Extra Features
The first disc only contains the theatrical trailer (the film was then just called A Time to Love) which illustrates what a tremendous job they did with the restoration, with the bulk of the extra material on the second disc. 
 
First up is a piece with an actor reading Jean-Luc Godard's terrific essay on the film that he wrote for Cahiers du cinéma, with the French delivery subtitled and accompanied by fitting images and illustrations. 
 
The second piece is a 19-minute conversation with Wesley Strick (the screenwriter of the Cape Fear remake) and author of a book about Douglas Sirk: Out There in the Dark.  He talks well about Sirk and the book, providing information that will be of great interest to those who like Sirk's films. 
 
The main feature is Imitation of Life (Mirage of Life): A Portrait of Douglas Sirk which was made for French television and comprises interviews with Sirk and his then wife Hilda.  They speak in German which is dubbed into French and subtitled in English!  This is a great complimentary piece to the interview with Strick. 
 
The set also comes with a 36 page booklet, crammed with fascinating excerpts from Tag Gallagher's writing on the film and Sirk's career, Godard's essay in full and other material by Sirk.
 

Conclusion

Though I'm not a fan of Sirk's work, I think his films are brilliant works of art: superbly crafted and visually complex to the extent that you see something new every time.  I liked A Time to Love and a Time to Die but it is a film to appreciate more than enjoy. This is a little different to his American films but is still a tremendous piece and The Masters of Cinema Series have given it the treatment it deserves.