Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

Product Type: DVD

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Melodramatic Parable Evolves Beautifully Into a Silent Masterpiece
To Heck with 19th Century Fox
A SILENT MASTERPIECE COMES EXQUISITELY TO LIFE .....
PROTOTYPE
This is how movies should be

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Starring: George O'Brien , Janet Gaynor , Margaret Livingston , Bodil Rosing , and J. Farrell MacDonald
Director: F.W. Murnau
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

( S ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
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ASIN: B00003CX6D

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There are those who rate Sunrise the greatest of all silent films. Then again, some consider it the finest film from any era. Such claims invite a backlash, but do yourself a favor and give it a look. At the very least, you'll know you've seen a movie of extraordinary visual beauty and emotional purity. This universal tale of a farm couple's journey from country to city and back again was the first American film for F.W. Murnau, the German director of Nosferatu and The Last Laugh whose everyday scenes seemed haunted by phantoms and whose most extravagant visions never lost touch with reality. Hollywood afforded him the technical resources to unleash his imagination, and in turn he opened up the power of camera movement and composition for a generation of American filmmakers. You'll never forget the walk in the swamp, the ripples on the lake, the trolley ride from forest to metropolis. This movie defines the cinema. --Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews:

Melodramatic Parable Evolves Beautifully Into a Silent Masterpiece.......2006-05-03

Even though there are heavily melodramatic moments as well as trivial, excisable ones (note the runaway pig), this 1927 masterwork by German expressionistic filmmaker F.W. Murnau is still an impressive piece of silent cinema released just days before the arrival of the breakthrough talkie, "The Jazz Singer". It does seem a shame that the sound revolution made films as expressive as "Sunrise" obsolete just as film auteurs like Murnau, Chaplin (1931's "City Lights") and Carl Theodor Dreyer (1928's "Le Passion de Jeanne d'Arc") were reaching their artistic peaks. "Sunrise" is essential viewing for anyone who wants to understand how emotionally resonant silent cinema can be when directed by a master of the form.

Adapted by Carl Mayer from a German short story, the fable-like plot revolves around three unnamed characters - a farmer, his wife and a woman from the city. Feeling stagnant in his marriage, the farmer embarks on an affair with the city woman who is on holiday in the country. The melodramatic elements of the story fall into place as the woman suggests the farmer kill his wife and sell his farm to move with her to the city. He nervously goes through the steps to take his wife out on a boat in order to drown her in what he will design as an accident. His true feelings for his wife intervene but not before his wife, realizing his intention, runs away into the city. He chases her and makes amends, and together, they have a spirited, romantic adventure in the city. With their marriage solidified, they encounter a storm when they take the boat back to the farm, and then fate takes its hand on the three characters.

The most startling aspect of the movie is the visual element which carries through the same stylized exaggeration of Murnau's German classics, "Nosferatu" and "The Last Laugh". Far more than the simple storyline or even the acting, the shimmering cinematography by Karl Struss and Charles Rosher and the impressive art direction headed by Rochus Gliese are what resonate today, as they all serve to add emotional weight to what is essentially an anti-adultery parable. The most impressive sets are of the realistic-looking city captured with all its pervasive impatience and scarifying traffic, and in particular, the Luna Park amusement park abuzz with futuristic rides and hedonistic crowds. A couple of impressive scenes involve the farmer and his wife oblivious to the traffic as they rekindle their love amid honking horns and piling vehicles.

Overall there is an impressive use of deep shadows and exaggerated set pieces to mirror the inner feelings of the characters. Even though it is a silent, the soundtrack on the DVD has the original orchestral score and effective sound effects to help bring another dimension to the story. Just twenty years old, Janet Gaynor uses her innocent manner and porcelain look to strong advantage as the wife, but it is the little-remembered George O'Brien who turns in the film's most powerful performance as the farmer, especially in his guilt-ridden plea for forgiveness outside the church where they witnessed a wedding. To her credit, Margaret Livingston plays the other woman with relative subtlety even though she is dolled up as a Louise Brooks-look-alike flapper.

The 2003 DVD has a terrific set of extras starting with informative commentary by cinematographer John Bailey, a protege of the film's main cinematographer Struss. He also contributes remarks to ten minutes worth of outtakes that have been miraculously saved in the studio vaults. There is a forty-minute partial reconstruction of Murnau's 1928 lost film with Gaynor, "Four Devils", made up completely of stills and drawings and a narrative track. Production stills and the original trailer for "Sunrise" complete the extras.

To Heck with 19th Century Fox.......2005-02-19

Apparently Fox Home Video thought a great way to force serious cinephiles frothing at the mouth for a remastered edition of Murnau's Sunrise was to package it with three other films that can't hold a candle to it. I don't want those other films, I want Sunrise damnit! I encourage anybody with an entrepreneurial spirit to sell me just the Sunrise DVD sold in that box set. I got thirty bucks on it.

A SILENT MASTERPIECE COMES EXQUISITELY TO LIFE ............2005-01-28

SUNRISE --- directed by F.W.Murnau --- was a commercial flop when first released in 1927, but is now recognised as one of the greatest, if not the greatest Silent Film ever made. Depending upon which books you read, it rivals Carl Dreyer's THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC as the No.1 Silent Film. Upon its release it met with almost total disdain from the American public who could not relate to the brooding Germanic atmosphere, and the simple, almost banal story.
A peasant farmer is seduced by the Woman from the City who talks him into drowning his wife and running off to the Big City. The farmer tries, when rowing across a lake, but just cannot do it. The wife flees in terror, jumps on a trolley-car and rides to the City, with the farmer just sitting staring at her.
This sequence is one of many fabulous " mood setters " in this film, and is one of Silent Cinema's most famous sequences, as the rural lakside, country pastures silently turn into the outskirts and then the centre of the City.
The rest of the film concentrates upon their gradual re-awakening to each other and then one the way home, across the lake by moonlight, fate takes a sinister and totally unexpected hand, leading to an emotionally heightened climax. If you are of intellectual bent, you could sneer at this beautiful and haunting film ... but if you are an emotionally responsive person, you will need a large box of tissues ............
Janet Gaynor who plays the Wife, won the Academy's very first Best Actress Award, ( although it was not called that at the time ). The film is famous for its brilliant atmospheric camera work and brilliantly set mood lighting .... especially the Man's tramping through the swamp to keep his moonlight tryst with the seductive Woman.
Not only did the public not understand this film, but its release by 20th Century Fox was unkowingly very ill-advised. Just a few weeks after the release of SUNRISE, Warner Bros flung THE JAZZ SINGER on to the world ... and the rest, as we all know, is cinematic history.
Another note of historical and scholarly interest is that SUNRISE is actually the FIRST feature-length film in which the human voice is heard. Many films up to this time had recorded musical soundtracks and sound effects. In SUNRISE, when the Wife and the Man reach the end of the trolley-car in the middle of the bustling and fast moving traffic in the City, the wife jumps out in fear and runs right into the middle of the traffic which seems to be going in all directions. You hear on the soundtrack, motor horns blaring and ther angry cries of motorists -- " get off the road", what do you think you are doing ? ", " get outta here ", etc. But not too many people heard it and a few weeks later THE JAZZ SINGER was released and .. we ain't heard anything, yet.
Another " claim to fame " of this film is that it is also considered to be the " grandaddy " of film noir, with its look and feel firmly set in Germanic Expressionist mode, and the birth of the femme fatale in film noir.
This sublime, beautifully filmed and sensitivly, sincerely acted film is one that will haunt you for a long time after viewing, and you will want to see it again and again.
And now we can in this MAGNIFICENT DVD transfer from Twentieth centry Fox. The film has been miraculously restored and remastered. All the prints I had seen previously and elsewhere, and the VHS videos I have of it from the USA and the UK are all faded and fuzzy, though very watchable and understandable. But now this DVD offers SUNRISE as it has never been seen before -- except perhaps upon its original release. Now we can see the lighting effects as they are presented in those beautiful photographs in film books. Now all levels of this are perceived and the viewing becomes an unforgettable cinematic experience.
With this DVD you have a choice of two soundtracks. One being the original Movietone soundtrack, and the other being a modern composition. I personally prefer the original. Firstly because that is the way the film was presented and meant to be seen. I also found that the other soundtrack eliminated the original sound effects, and unfortunately for my taste, like most other modern compositions to accompany Silent Film, the films seem to exist merely to accompany the new musical soundtrack and NOT vice-versa.
There is also a silent trailer for the film, and that is a novelty ... and other features to make this a treasured DVD in any collection. The one about the set designs and establishment of mood and matching shots is fascinating.
This is one of the greatest films, offered on one of the greatest DVD transfers around. if you love and know Silent Film, you won't need to be told to buy this DVD. If not sure, just buy it anyway. You won't regret it. I bought it -- ( I actually have two, one is a backup ), and watched this film over and over again.
Thank you Twentieth Century Fox for reincarnating and helping countless numbers of people to discover and re-discover this mesmerising and unforgettable film.

PROTOTYPE.......2004-10-02

I largely agree with William T. Jameson. What modern viewers don't realize is how influential this film became in Hollywood. If Murnau had lived longer, he might have become as powerful a force in movies as Hitchcock became, and it would have been largely due to the fact that both trained in German silent cinema techniques, which involved evocation of mood from pictoral composition and set lighting. After Sunrise, feature after feature capitalized on or borrowed one or another of the many effects Murnau invented.

Today, the scholarly view says that with this film Murnau invented the "Woman's Picture." A new genre? Makes no sense to me if you look at so many of Griffeth's features. Nevertheless, as beautiful as Daybreak is, it is revolutionary in the sense that it is an unusual display of cinematographer's craft in the sence that most of the takes are extremely long, establishing a kind of visual rhythm that carries us, as a musical theme does, through the story that is simple, overall, but profoundly complex in its details.

A great, emotional masterpiece. Nobody who wants to build a cinema library should be without a copy.

This is how movies should be.......2004-09-03

It baffles me why Fox hasn't released this in any other form except for the now-expired buy-3-get-it-free offer (although their misleading website won't tell you that this offer is no longer valid).

the film Sunrise is enigmatic to describe. sure, you can give a simple plot synopsis: farmer struggles with the temptation to drown his wife, only to fall in love with her again through a series of events, including the dramatic conclusion where he almost loses her in a storm.

however, the movie really needs to be experienced to truly understand why it is such a masterpiece. amazing cinematography makes this the peak of the German expressionist movement. camera angles and techniques are here a perfected science that turns the ordinary into the extraordinary. the commentary reveals more about the staging than you could ever catch on your own, such as where miniatures end and reality begins. and while movies today usually have all of their special effects clearly analyzed, the amazement of many silent movies, like Sunrise, is that we still don't know for sure exactely how some of the effects were achieved.

special effects are surprising, for an otherwise unremarkable melodrama that doesn't seem to call for any special effects. in the hands of anybody else, the script would have been a potential disaster. Murnau was, however, the true star of all of his films, most notably because none of his movies are really star-vehicles. his moves were simply great regardless of who was playing in them.

i think one thing that hasn't been mentioned enough are some of the amazing extras on this DVD. even though Murnau's Four Devil's is a lost movie, the entire story is retold from surviving production elements: stills, drawings, and the script. it's certainly an unconventional way to show a movie, but it's an amazing glimpse into a film that may never be seen again. interestingly, the Four Devils comprises a good percentage of the disc, enough to merit its own DVD release. it would be great if other lost films could be retold in this manner, similar to the restored ending of Sadie Thompson.

this movie desperately needs to have a real release. it's a real tragedy when great movies are in the hands of studios that just don't know what to do with them.

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