Sunrise (film)
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| Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans |
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 Theatrical Poster |
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| Directed by | F.W. Murnau |
| Produced by | William Fox |
| Written by | Carl Mayer Story: Hermann Sudermann |
| Starring | Janet Gaynor George O'Brien Margaret Livingston |
| Cinematography | Charles Rosher Karl Struss |
| Editing by | Harold D. Schuster |
| Distributed by | Fox Film Corporation |
| Release date(s) | Sept. 23, 1927 |
| Running time | 95 minutes |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | Silent film English intertitles |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is an American 1927 silent film directed by F.W. Murnau. The film is also known as Sunrise.[1]
This film is one of the first with a soundtrack of music and sound effects recorded in then-new Fox Movietone sound-on-film system.
The story was adapted by Carl Mayer from the short story Die Reise nach Tilsit by Hermann Sudermann. Sunrise won an Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production at the first ever Oscar ceremony in 1929. In a 2002 critics' poll for the British Film Institute, Sunrise was named the seventh-best film in the history of motion pictures.[2]
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[edit] Plot
The film tells a fable of a married farmer, The Man (George O'Brien) who gives up dinner with The Wife (Janet Gaynor) to continue an affair with The Woman From The City (Margaret Livingston).
The Woman convinces The Man that he should drown The Wife and move with her to The City. They decide he should take her out on a boat trip, commit the crime, and say it was an accident. The Wife agrees to go on the trip, yearning for any bit of time and affection from her husband, but soon grows suspicious of his behavior.
The two go out on a boat to the City. Halfway across the Man stands up and makes ready to throw the Wife overboard. Looking into her eyes he realizes he can't do it. He sits back down heavily and begins frantically rowing for the shore. When the boat lands, the Wife flees. The Man follows her.
Eventually the two end up in the City. The Man, desperate to apologize and make things right, ends up following the Wife throughout the City until they reach a church. Going inside, they find a wedding in progress. As the couple marrying swear their vows, the Man begins to cry and remembers why he fell in love with the Wife to begin with. Arm-in-arm they leave the church.
Much of the rest of the film simply follows them on their adventure through the City, which includes having their picture taken, going to an amusement park and chasing a drunk pig. Finally they head back to the boat and begin to row home.
During the trip back, however, a storm blows up. The Man rows as fast as he can, but in the end the boat begins to sink. His last act on the boat is to secure the Wife to a bundle of reeds brought aboard originally to help in the planned murder. Now he hopes they will act as a liferaft for the Wife.
The boat goes under, and the Man eventually ends up on shore. Of the Wife, there is no sign....
[edit] Style
Sunrise was made by F.W. Murnau, a German director who was one of the leading figures in German Expressionism, a style that uses distorted art design for symbolic effect. Murnau was invited by 20th Century Fox to make an Expressionist film in Hollywood.
The resulting film features enormous stylized sets that create an exaggerated, fairy-tale-like world. Murnau manages to use a subtle technique of animal and plant imagery as an important tool to indicate the mood or tone in a particular scene and accent the deconstruction of generic dichotomies.
The use of nature is extremely important to Murnau. Many of the scenes are not shot on location, but constructed. This creates an extremely realistic, almost hyper-reality, which builds a tone of uncertainty and surrealism. This technique is clearly used in the swamp rendezvous between the Man and the Woman from the City.
Examining the natural environment in Sunrise is extremely important because it highlights the dichotomies like City vs. Country, that Murnau establishes, and then later critiques. The natural environment looks real, but is artificial, the city seems evil, but is actually fun.
Titles are used sparingly in the movie. Previously, in Germany, Murnau had made a film called The Last Laugh which told its story without any title card whatsoever. In Sunrise, there are long sequences without titles, and the bulk of the story is told through images in a similar style.
[edit] Cast
- George O'Brien as The Man (Anses)
- Janet Gaynor as The Wife (Indre)
- Margaret Livingston as The Woman from the City
- Bodil Rosing as The Maid
- J. Farrell MacDonald as The Photographer
- Ralph Sipperly as The Barber
- Jane Winton as The Manicure Girl
- Arthur Housman as The Obtrusive Gentleman
- Eddie Boland as The Obliging Gentleman
[edit] Awards
Wins
- Academy Awards: Oscar; Best Actress in a Leading Role, Janet Gaynor; Best Cinematography, Charles Rosher and Karl Struss; Best Picture, Unique and Artistic Production; 1929.
- Kinema Junpo Awards: Kinema Junpo Award; Best Foreign Language Film F.W. Murnau; 1929.
Nominations
- Academy Awards: Oscar; Best Art Direction, Rochus Gliese; 1929.
Other distinguishments
- In 1989 the film was selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry.
- Top 10 of the Sight and Sound critic's poll for best film ever made in 2002.
- American Film Institute's 100 Passions list.
[edit] DVD
20th Century Fox has released Sunrise on DVD, but only as a special, limited edition available only by mailing in proofs-of-purchase for other DVD titles in their "Studio Classics" line, or as part of the box set Studio Classics: The 'Best Picture' Collection. Individual copies of the Sunrise DVD can frequently be found on Ebay.
The DVD includes commentary, a copy of the film's trailer, details about Murnau's great lost film Four Devils, outtakes and a great many more features.
Sunrise has also been released on DVD as part of the Masters of Cinema series.
[edit] Trivia
- Much of the exterior shooting was done at Lake Arrowhead in California.
- Murnau makes extensive use of forced perspective throughout the film. Of special note is a shot of the City where you see normal-sized people and sets in the foreground and midgets in the background along with much smaller sets.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Sunrise at the Internet Movie Database.
- ^ Sight and Sound article.
[edit] External links
- An essay on Sunrise by R. Dixon Smith for the Masters of Cinema DVD release.
- Roger Ebert's Great Movie essay on Sunrise.
- Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans at the Arts & Faith Top100 Spiritually Significant Films list
- Village Voice essay.
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1927–28: Wings, Sunrise | 1928–29: The Broadway Melody | 1929–30: All Quiet on the Western Front | 1930–31: Cimarron | 1931–32: Grand Hotel | 1932–33: Cavalcade | 1934: It Happened One Night | 1935: Mutiny on the Bounty | 1936: The Great Ziegfeld | 1937: The Life of Emile Zola | 1938: You Can't Take It with You | 1939: Gone with the Wind | 1940: Rebecca |
German films: Der Knabe in Blau (1919) Prinz Kuckuck (1919) • Der Januskopf (1920) • Satanas (1920) • Sehnsucht (1920) • Der Gang in die Nacht (1920) • Der Bucklige und die Tänzerin (1920) • Schloß Vogelöd (1921) • Marizza (1922) • Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922) • Phantom (1922) • Der brennende Acker (1922) • Die Austreibung (1923) • Der letzte Mann (1924) • Die Finanzen des Großherzogs (1924) • Herr Tartüff (1926) • Faust (1926) •
American films: Sunrise (1927) • Four Devils (1928) • City Girl (1930) • Tabu (1931)
