| Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | F. W. Murnau |
| Produced by | William Fox |
| Written by | Carl Mayer Story: Hermann Sudermann |
| Starring | George O'Brien Janet Gaynor Margaret Livingston |
| Cinematography | Charles Rosher Karl Struss |
| Editing by | Harold D. Schuster |
| Distributed by | Fox Film Corporation |
| Release date(s) | September 23, 1927 |
| Running time | 95 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent film English intertitles |
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, also known as Sunrise, is a 1927 American silent film directed by German film director F. W. Murnau. The story was adapted by Carl Mayer from the short story "Die Reise nach Tilsit" ("A Trip to Tilsit"[1][2]) by Hermann Sudermann.
Sunrise won an Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production at the first ever Academy Awards ceremony in 1929. In 1937, Sunrise's original negative was destroyed in a nitrate fire. A new negative was created from a surviving print.[3] In 1989, this film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in their National Film Registry. In a 2002 critics' poll for the British Film Institute, Sunrise was named the seventh-best film in the history of motion pictures.[4]
In 2007, the film was chosen #82 on the 10th anniversary update of the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movies list of great films.[5] Sunrise is one of the first with a soundtrack of music and sound effects recorded in the then-new Fox Movietone sound-on-film system. Much of the exterior shooting was done at Lake Arrowhead, California.
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A Woman From the City (Margaret Livingston) travels to the country on a summertime vacation. She lingers in one particular lakeside town for weeks, having started an affair. One night, she puts on a slinky black dress and wanders through town to a farmhouse where the Man (George O'Brien) and the Wife (Janet Gaynor) live with their infant child. She whistles from outside to the Man. The Man leaves his wife and child for a clandestine tryst. The Wife, well aware (as is everyone else in town) of why her husband has gone, cries on her child's pillow.
The Man and the Woman embrace. The Woman tells the Man that he should sell the farm and go with her to the City. When he asks what to do about his wife, she suggests he drown her and make it look like a boating accident. He objects violently at first, but reluctantly agrees. The Woman gathers bundles of reeds so that, when the boat is overturned, the Man can use them to help stay afloat.
The Wife suspects nothing when her husband suggests going on an outing. The next day, they set off across the lake, but she soon grows suspicious of his strange behavior. The Man stands up menacingly and prepares to throw the Wife overboard, but realizes he cannot do it. He sits back down and begins rowing frantically. When the boat reaches the other shore, the Wife flees and the Man follows, begging her not to be afraid of him.
The Wife boards a trolley to escape, but the Man manages to get on as well. It takes them into the City. Once there, the Wife runs from the Man in a state of fear and confusion into the busy street. The Man catches her and pulls her to safety. Together they wander the City, the Wife still fearful and unsure of the Man's intentions toward her. Slowly, she begins to forgive him. He buys her a bouquet of flowers. Soon after, they go inside a church to watch a wedding. The Man breaks down. After a tearful reconciliation, they wander into the street, oblivious to the busy traffic around them.
They stroll around the City, getting their picture taken by a photographer who mistakes them for newlyweds, and visiting a barber shop, where the Man gets a shave, then has to fend off an admirer of the Wife. They make their way to a bustling amusement park, where they play a Midway game and dance to a country tune. As darkness falls, they board the trolley for home.
Soon they are drifting peacefully back across the lake under the moonlight. A sudden storm causes their boat to begin sinking. The Man remembers the two bundles of reeds he placed in the boat earlier, and ties the bundles around the Wife. Then the boat capsizes. The Man awakes on the rocky shore, but cannot find his wife. He gathers the townspeople to search the lake in boats for the Wife, but all they find is a broken bundle of reeds floating in the water.
The Woman From The City wakes to the frantic mobilization of the townsfolk and watches from the shadows. Convinced the Wife has drowned, the grief-stricken Man stumbles home and sobs uncontrollably on the Wife's empty bed. The Woman goes to his house, assuming their plan has succeeded, but recoils in horror as the Man glares at her in a murderous rage. She flees, but he chases her down, and begins to choke her. Then the Maid calls to him that his wife is alive, and he releases the Woman. The Wife has survived by clinging to one last bundle of reeds, and has been pulled from the lake by an old fisherman who did not give up hope.
The Man kneels by the Wife's bed as she slowly opens her eyes and smiles radiantly at him. As the sun rises over their farmhouse, the Woman From The City leaves town on a cart. The Man and the Wife kiss as the film dissolves to the sunrise.
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 William Fox to make an Expressionist film in Hollywood.
The resulting film features enormous stylized sets that create an exaggerated, fairy-tale-like world; the City street set alone reportedly cost over US$200,000 to build and was re-used in many subsequent Fox productions including John Ford's Four Sons (1928).[6] 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.
Titles are used sparingly in the film. Previously, in Germany, Murnau had made a film called The Last Laugh which told its story with only one title card (to explain the ending). In Sunrise, there are long sequences without titles, and the bulk of the story is told through images in a similar style. Murnau makes extensive use of forced perspective throughout the film. Of special note is a shot of the City where one can see normal-sized people and sets in the foreground and little people in the background along with much smaller sets.
The film is also notable for its groundbreaking cinematography (by Charles Rosher and Karl Struss), and features some particularly impressive tracking shots that influenced later filmmakers. The film contains the longest continuous tracking shot ever made up to that point: over four minutes in one take. These innovations have led some to call it the Citizen Kane of American silent cinema.
The lack of names contributed to its feeling of symbolism.[7] When Veit Harlan made Die Reise nach Tilsit, he pointed to the symbolism and soft focus of Sunrise to claim that it was a poem, whereas the realistic Die Reise nach Tilsit was a film.[8]
Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times highly praised the film calling it "A Film Masterpiece."[9] Time said it was a "meagre story" and "manages to remain picturesquely soporific for a long evening."[10] It was ranked number 3 in a list of the 100 greatest films of the Silent Era.[11]
Academy Award wins (1929)[12]
Academy Award nominations (1929)
Other awards
Other distinctions
20th Century Fox originally released Sunrise on DVD in Region 1, but only as a special, limited edition available only by mailing in proofs-of-purchase for other DVD titles in their 20th Century Fox Studio Classics line, or as part of the box set Studio Classics: The 'Best Picture' Collection. Individual copies of this DVD can frequently be found on eBay. The DVD includes commentary, a copy of the film's trailer, details about Murnau's lost film Four Devils, outtakes and a great many more features.
In late 2008, Fox released the "Murnau, Borzage and Fox Box Set" in some markets. Both Movietone and European silent versions of "Sunrise" are included. A documentary of the three individuals is also part of the collection.
Sunrise has also been released on DVD in the UK as part of the Masters of Cinema series. In September 2009, Masters of Cinema released a 2-disc DVD reissue, containing both the Movietone version and the shorter Czech print found on the 2008 "Murnau, Borzage and Fox" DVD, as well as the extra features found on the previous Masters of Cinema DVD release and the Fox Studio Classics release. The film was released simultaneously on Blu-ray Disc,[14] with both versions of the feature rendered in 1080p High-definition video, and both the stereo and the mono soundtracks rendered in Dolby TrueHD lossless audio. This UK release is notable as the first occasion of a silent film being released on Blu-ray.
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