Slideshow
SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS
U.S., 1927
Directed by F.W. Murnau
Starring George O’Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston
WINNER Academy Awards® – Best Cinematography, Best Actress (Janet Gaynor), Unique & Artistic Production, 1928
Approx. 94 min. DCP.
The idyllic marriage of George O’Brien and Janet Gaynor is threatened when he falls for a cigarette-smoking, jazz-loving vamp from the city—so hard that he contemplates murdering his wife. F.W. Murnau and his screenwriter Carl Mayer were given an almost unlimited budget and artistic freedom for their first Hollywood picture, creating a nearly title-less visual poem. From the seduction scene in the misty, moonlit marshes, to the carnival-like trip to the city, to the hair-raising storm on the lake, this is a work of photographic pyrotechnics, from cameras moving on rails set in the roof of the set, to the lights of the city shimmering on the lake at night, to pictorial evocation of sounds and cries, in the last gasp of silent film. Under Murnau’s direction, Charles Rosher and Karl Struss won the very first Oscar® for cinematography; while Janet Gaynor won Best Actress (for this and two other films); plus a never-repeated award for “Unique & Artistic Production”.
Presented with support from The Ada Katz Fund for Literature in Film
Reviews
“A breathtaking display of cinematic virtuosity, creating one of the masterworks of the art form...”
– Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“Possibly the greatest achievement of both Murnau and the silent film.”
– Pauline Kael
“Simply put, there’s before SUNRISE and after it…It’s easily the most modern film of the silent period…you can see Murnau not only obliterating the barriers of cinema’s vocabulary but also constructing a new, sophisticated language before your very eyes.”
– David Fear, Time Out (New York)
“Silent cinema reaches its acme with the movement of Murnau’s camera through the vaporous fields of an invented America. Superimpositions and dissolves achieve an almost mythical state of deliquescence. Light not only flows but melts. Thirty years after its release, the ultimate cinephile magazine Cahiers du Cinéma declared SUNRISE ‘the single greatest masterwork in the history of cinema.’ It’s an assertion as reckless, romantic, and extravagant as the movie itself.”
– J. Hoberman, Village Voice