In 1927 German director FW Murnau was invited to Fox with full artistic freedom. Murnau created SUNRISE just as talkies happened and, although silent, it was Fox's first Movietone film, utilising a syncronised soundtrack with music and sound effects. Murnau's sublime film has illuminated cinema for 93 years.
In a coastal village, popular with city vacationers, a young married couple struggle with a failing farm and a new baby; he has also started an affair with a sexy vamp from the city.
She pursuades him to drown his wife in a supposed boating accident but once out on the water he cannot do it after seeing his wife's terror.
On shore, the wife runs onto a city-bound tram but he pursues her. In the frentic bustle of the city the couple slowly discover their love again.
Sailing back, their boat is overturned in a sudden storm... will fate intervene?
Shelf or charity shop? Shelf. At the first Academy Awards ceremony, SUNRISE won three: Janet Gaynor's performance won her Best Actress (along with her performances in Borzage's 7TH HEAVEN and STREET ANGEL), Charles Rosher and Karl Struss' visual story-telling won Best Cinematography and it won the only Academy Award given for Best Unique and Artistic Picture. It's that and more, a truly extraordinary film where Murnau showed the world what it was going to lose at the loss of silence - forced perspectives, montage, double exposures to show a split-screen, model-work, superimposed imagery and fluid dream-like tracking shots. Gaynor's exquisite - but never cloying - performance as The Woman is complemented by George O'Brien's glowering as The Man and Margaret Livingston as the nasty Woman From The City. What makes SUNRISE so magical is that it includes many witty touches with lovely detailed work in a photographic studio, a barbershop and in the riotous funfair the couple visit: not every cinematic classic can find time for a woman's permanently slipping shoulder straps and a drunken piglet! One of my all-time favourites.
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