Review of Sunrise

Introduction

In the year of the first ever Oscars this film ran off with three. Janet Gaynor was awarded the best Actress it won best Cinematography. It was also given a special Oscar for being a Unique and Artistic Picture. Hollywood knows a good thing even if it doesn`t understand it. The film was not a commercial success but despite that or usually because of it Sunrise remains in the consciousness of the critics coming up year after year in specialist movie polls. The Sight and Sound Poll of Greatest Movies2002 saw Sunrise voted in at joint Number 7 with Battleship Potemkin in the Critics Poll.
The film was the first and only film by Murnau in which he was given unlimited money and artistic freedom. Remarkably given other directors occasional excesses he produced a film that is extremely enduring and watchable.

The version offered up here should please all those hanging on to a badly scratched and grubby version on VHS The film has been digitally remastered and fully restored.

Silent movies are rather different from those we have become accustomed to. Far from being silent they were presented with often vigorous orchestral accompaniment. Depending on the different theatres this might be reduced to a lone piano. Later on as with this film a technique was development to record a musical soundtrack on the print.

Films began with graphic representation of real life. When the Lumiere brothers showed a film of a train arriving at a station it is said many people panicked and jumped out of their seats in a bid to get away.

Narratives became the norm very rapidly with the audience quickly adapting to this movie magic. Complex stories were soon the order of the day and `Sunrise is the culmination of thirty years of silent film.

Although ostensibly American the film made by a newly arrived German, F.W. Murnau had a European look. Previously best known for his faithful but non royalty paying rendition of the Dracula story in `Nosferatu`. His films were in the school of German Expressionism and this film although having different subject matter draws heavily on this tradition.

Video

The print has been fully restored and digitally re-mastered. A black and white film it makes good use of montage and visualisation of thought processes making it a film student`s dream. It also uses flashbacks as a method of forwarding the story. Only thirty years of movies and the narrative tradition was well established.

Without the use of script to establish character the physical representation becomes much more crucial. Characters are extremely heavily drawn from the presentation of the corrupt black-haired chain-smoking `woman of the city` to the angelic, golden-haired `wife. Indeed the husband is rumoured to have been wearing 20lb lead weights in his boots to make his appearance and mannerism laden with guilt and lust. I hope this does not make the film sound pantomimic because it isn`t.

There is very little of Sunrise that was filmed on location and all the houses were added to the location of the village setting. The scenes and the actors are manipulated to a great degree. Even the floors on the houses were built sloping to give an extremely false perspective.

Audio

With no dialogue the sound is represented by a cinematic score. There are, in fact, two included here with the option to watch the film with either. The second one was written for a new theatrical release.
I prefer the second one as it is a little more subtle.

Features

of extras that will suit a serious student of film and someone who is casually interested.

There are two scores and a commentary from the historian John Bailey. The commentary goes into considerable technical and some anecdotal detail filling out the background very nicely.


Documentary by R. Dixon Smith-film historian

Another exceptional essay with images describing the film and its context.

Documentary-The Four Devils

This documentary told through production stills, art department drawings and the original script treatment is the tale of a ghost film. The film The Four Devils made shortly after Sunrise is not know to exist in any format. The lost film is judged by this account to be a masterpiece from a very limited catalogue of films by D.W. Murnau.

The Four Devils is an example of a film made as a silent and re-released with dialogue. The director`s vision was hacked and slashed. it was likely that Murnau never got to see it as he tragically died in a car crash shortly after completing `Tabu` in Tahiti with Robert Flaherty. Dying at the tender age of 42 he left behind a tiny legacy reduced by the loss of this film.

`The Four Devils` was made at a period of great change. Sound was coming and the demands of the studios for `talkies` changed the criteria of film itself. As detailed in a comedic way in `Singing in the Rain` sound meant an end to the lyrical flowing of film and image. Sound meant constriction and lead to films becoming more static and well, noisy, for sometime. There were stars who managed the transition but it must have stuck in the craw of those who considered themselves to be artists of the silent screen. When Gloria Swanson states `the pictures got smaller` she is referring to the epic silents being changed into quite another thing by sound.


Outtakes

A selection of outtakes from the original cinematic presentation including commentary by John Bailey.

Restoration Notes

A screen page of notes about the restoration. That`s enough for me I confess.

Good animated menus that present the swamp where the husband meets the `woman from the city` for an illicit rendezvous. Complete with footsteps.

CD Rom features - word document of The Four Devils and Sunrise Screenplay and a PDF file of Sunrise screenplay. Useful for the film student and for further information.


Some niggles here with presentation box-the chapter titles are behind the second disc so you need to take the second disc out to read them-why?

Also once you get onto the extras menu there is no way back. That may be a comment on life or perhaps just an oversight.

Conclusion

If you are looking for something completely different from the norm this film will entrance and intrigue you. It will transport you to another place and time. `Sunrise` follows the rebirth of love from the temptation by the `city woman` through an epiphany and rediscovery of joy. It is a unique experience and although not something I am used to watching it has re-inspired my love for film. A classic in the same mould as ` Citizen Kane` it is much more watchable than Kane.

Well presented with some excellent bonus features this is the right way to treat the classics and I look forward to more.