Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans – Reviewing The Oldies
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, to give him his full name, died in an automobile accident in California in 1931. The German-born émigré director was 42 years old. His death was luridly speculated upon by Kenneth Anger in his book Hollywood Babylon. Whatever the cause of his untimely end, there are few cinema artists who left behind such an iconic body of work, at such a relatively early age.
Working in Germany in the 1920s, Murnau helmed some of the greatest silent features ever made. His roll of honour includes: Nosferatu (1922), The Last Laugh (1924) and Faust (1926). Taking up an offer of work with American producer William Fox, he left behind Germany for good. It would provide a legacy entitled Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), and his death.
Murnau will forever be associated with a landmark aesthetic known as German Expressionism. His experimental, highly-stylised, poetic outlook proved highly influential. There is general debate as to whether Sunrise is an American picture or a German one. Can’t it be both? Why be concerned with irrelevant fixations? It is clear Murnau was given total control (at least for his debut). In many ways it is an archetypal American movie and set the template for that nation’s penchant for sentimentality. However its “look” is distinctly European. It is what it is: a collaboration matching genius with first-rate craftsmanship. Just as immigrants set sail to the New World and created a melting pot, so too, does Murnau and his crew with Sunrise.
Fox lavished a lot of money on his German director and their production. Murnau was a man with grand vision and taste. The result being a feast for the eyes. Groundbreaking in many departments; including the privilege of being the first sound-designed film, only its melodramatic acting as aged poorly. Huge, cavernous sets were built to complex designs. It is known that rather than destroy the sets after the shoot, Fox Studios reused them for years. It was all with prescient timing, too. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Fox was flat broke, and in 1931, forced out of his own business.
The scenario by Carl Mayer (another “name” from the German expressionist era) is a simple, fable-like tale (based on a novel: Die Reise nach Tilsit), which invokes fears of corruption and industrialisation upon the rural idyll and character. This was not an uncommon theme in those days. Writers such as D.H. Lawrence and George Orwell, especially, discussed these worries in their novels. A man (George O’Brien) is seduced by a vamp from the city (Margret Livingston) into killing his wife (Janet Gaynor) so they can run away together. Like Emile Zola’s Therese Raquin, the initial plot involves an unsuspecting person being drowned and it made to look like an accident.
As the man abandons the murder of his wife, they go to the city and rediscover their love and commitment. A series of vignettes and episodes in the city feel sensual, alive, funny and tender. Whether it’s a trip to a hair salon, a photographer’s studio or dancing and getting drunk on wine, this “living” quality is intoxicating. Murnau the maestro delivers laugh after laugh (there was a Comedy Consultant hired) before tragedy strikes and ultimate redemption is found.
There are many scenes that are rightly praised as “classic moments”. The most famous involves the Man walking down a country path at night, only for the tracking shot to leave him and push on through a set of bushes, re-connecting with him further along, as he now, approaches the camera. It is an audacious move, as it breaks the invisible barrier between camera and subject. The viewer is suddenly treated to a bit of self-reflective cinema. The subject “disappears” – such is the freedom of the film medium. It is a scene, both, graceful and spellbinding in its artifice. Later, the love-struck fool is sat brooding as a variety of head and body shots (all of the vamp) are super-imposed to create a collage of psychological impact. It is revolutionary filmmaking.
Sunrise can boast, too, of securing the very first “Best Film” Oscar (sharing it with William Wellman’s Wings). Janet Gaynor won Best Actress for her doe-eyed portrayal of The Wife and cameramen Charles Rosher and Karl Struss (a Brit and an American) picked up Best Cinematography.
Neither O’Brien, Gaynor or Murnau reached the career heights of Sunrise again. Murnau, no matter the abundance of cinematic flair and genius, could not play the autocrat in Hollywood (a lesson many directors have learned), his films after Sunrise offered a sharp decline. Having staked his claim in German film history, not many can boast doing it in America too. There is a lack of cynicism in his films that other German or Austrian directors working in Hollywood held in abundance. Yet F.W. Murnau’s career soon hit the skids and after a couple of films he quit the studio system (but not America).
Sunrise holds a lofty place in the cinematic pantheon of greatness. Despite its lack of “commercial success”, it is frequently described and voted as one of the greatest films ever made. Its power has not diminished at all since its release 82 years ago. It remains a work that ravishes the eyes and moves the heart. Yes, O’Brien and Gaynor over-do the acting at times (naturalistic styles were to come later), but who is not touched as the repentant husband rests his head in his wife’s lap weeping for forgiveness?
It is worth remembering, too, Sunrise’s original negative was lost in a fire. A vast majority of films made before 1950 are gone. The lack of care attended to the highly flammable material and brittle celluloid; along with lack of foresight into film preservation, ensured their demise. There will always be an audience for this picture for as long as people and the medium exists. It still resonates as more than a curious piece of art from an even more curious period. One cannot say “they don’t make them like that now.” Nobody made them like that then. It is peerless filmmaking. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is one of the key texts in cinema history.
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