If you're watching Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, you probably haven't happened across it by chance. A silent black and white movie from 1927 is not the sort of film used as television schedule filler, nor routinely re-run at cinemas, nor likely to appeal to the casual viewer looking to pick up cheap home media or streaming films to pass a couple of hours. So it is highly likely that you won't come to Sunrise without expectations; if so, they are equally likely to be met.
F. W. Murnau's Hollywood expressionist film is famous for being the only film ever to win the one-off Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Picture, which was dropped the following year. But it's even more famous amongst cinephiles as the best example of Murnau's talents as a film director. The film is highly stylised, on every level: none of the characters have names, nor does the City. The opening intertitle informs us that the story is "of no place and every place" and that life is the same everywhere. That sets the tone for an allegorical tale that sees a Man tempted to leave his Wife for the Woman from the City, who urges the Man to drown the Wife in the process. The Man can't bring himself to do so, and he and the Wife rekindle their love for one another in the City, before returning home where the Man rejects the Woman for the City and the temptation she represents. It's important to remember the allegorical nature of Carl Mayer's screenplay, with its themes of good and evil, temptation and redemption, otherwise modern audiences might be somewhat concerned that the film ends with the Wife happily living back with a husband who tried to kill her and then attempted to make up for it with cake and flowers.
But engaging and entertaining though the simple story actually proves to be, it is the film's direction for which it is rightly famous. It begins with an artwork intertitle that then dissolves into the first shot, and later features intertitles that - for example - see words running down the screen and disappearing. Cinematographers Charles Rosher and Karl Struss use double exposures, forced perspective and lengthy tracking shots throughout the film, whilst the Man is usually shot from a high angle, almost giving the impression that a hand-held camera was used, which of course in 1927 it wasn't. Murnau also includes flashbacks and imaginary sequences, such as when the idea of drowning the Wife first goes through the Man's mind. Despite the sober nature of the plot, the film even incorporates comedy, as demonstrated by the statuette scene and the slapstick scene in which the Man chases an escaped pig, which involves more complicated camerawork.
The enormous sets are very impressive, with the lavish funfair set a feat unto itself. The fact that the village set was built on location makes it look more realistic, and it thus neatly contrasts with the City sets. The special effects used to create the storm represent another technical innovation, and on top of all of this Sunrise is famous for being one of the first films to use the Movietone system, and thus has a synchronized score and sound effects, which is especially noticeable during the scenes in the City.
The acting is more naturalistic than is usually the case in silent movies, with an unusual degree of subtlety in the performances, especially that of George O'Brien as the Man and Janet Gaynor as the Wife. O'Brien conveys the Man's conflicting emotions with remarkable understatement. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans has been dissected time and time again and lauded for its technical brilliance, but what really impresses about it is that it manages to not only works as an example of a cinema pioneer's craft, it succeeds it being enjoyable and entertaining at the same time.
Review of Sunrise
