Distinguishing the Female Protagonist in Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul and Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven

Abstract

When a movie is remade the primary story changes in order to reflect the social norms of a new audience. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) and Far From Heaven (2002) are replicas of the original film All That Heaven Allows from 1955. Each film tackles different issues with the female as the protagonist. Social class, race and homosexuality are at the core of these three films. In this paper, I will discuss all three films and interject how the heroine discovers herself and why she needs to evolve. As each heroine finds herself, she strives to break the monotony that society has constructed for her and by breaking free she discovers what she has been looking for on her own terms. Societal structures barricade our protagonist by creating obstacles for her to move through, like class differences, racial bigotry and love. The female’s journey will be looked at through a critical analysis of each film including its production design, score and lighting. Feminist film theory will help us understand how these generations look at female characters on film. In the next decade, this film may be told through a completely different filter based on the societal norms of what that generation is facing.