City Libraries, City of Gold Coast

Daisy Kenyon

eng

videorecording

Daisy Kenyon

videorecording

Commercial artist Daisy Kenyon is involved with married lawyer Dan O'Mara, and hopes someday to marry him, if he ever divorces his wife Lucille. She meets returning veteran Peter, a decent and caring man, whom she does not love, but who offers her love and a more hopeful relationship. She marries him... just as Dan gets a divorce. Preminger's camera remains fluid but objective in taking us through a drama structurally determined by the act of making a choice. Uniquely, in the genre of the woman's picture, Preminger deflects melodrama towards documentary. He closely observes detail and subtly sets up interaction between character and setting. The focus upon the woman's moment of decision does not generate a sense of catharsis so much as one of ambivalence - an awareness of the closing off of her options rather than of the 'rightness' of her choice