A story of two humans
So in the past two days, I've watched F.W. Murnau's Sunrise twice. I've been hearing about it since school, but sort of half-avoiding it because I had heard so much about how "beautiful" it was with a sense of "don't really bother about the story." A lot of the time, that doesn't work for me. I'm not very visually-oriented, though it's more complicated than that because I'm not bad at certain aesthetic functions. For instance, I'm find with layout, and I could draw if I put my mind to it. But I tend to pay more attention to narrative and character, and when someone says "Oh, don't go for that, go for the images" they often mean it in a big-budget shiny overlay sense, and if it's not underpinned by the narrative I have trouble caring.
But I was wrong about Sunrise. It's gorgeous, yes--I'd say it's the most technically accomplished silent film I've ever seen, and probably better aesthetically than anything for about ten years after it--but the visuals absolutely tell the story. And I shouldn't have been that surprised, but everything about it delights me. From the "interactive" intertitles to the amazing cinematography to the way the whole thing has an archetypal, fairy-tale sensibility, I love it. It's a silent film that is absolutely perfect as a silent film, rather than it being a limit imposed by technology (and by 1927, those limits were about to disappear). And I know that silent film proponents will argue that silent film shouldn't be judged as technologically limited, but one has to admit that some filmmakers did a lot better than others at non-verbal storytelling.
The Masters of Cinema blu-ray disc is, too, a strong argument for having more silent/black and white film on HD formats. The picture is amazing, and I'm so used to seeing silent pictures on fuzzy washed-out prints that it was a relief. I wonder how many blu-ray producers are going back to original sources and really doing right by the film and the format.
I've also been watching some von Stroheim (Blind Husbands, Foolish Wives) and von Sternberg (only Der Blaue Engel so far, but I've got a Dietrich collection waiting for me) in an effort to fill some of the holes in my film education. Interesting stuff! Though I find Stroheim more interesting as a person than a filmmaker--though of course those things are intricately related. He's just so absurd and, ultimately, tragic. No opinion yet on Sternberg but I will observe that Dietrich was pretty hot before she became MARLENE DIETRICH with scary cheekbones. And I enjoyed the film, especially Emil Jannings, and to bring this back to Murnau I need to see The Last Laugh.
This entry is also posted at http://my-daroga.dreamwidth.org/268710.html. Feel free to comment wherever you want.
But I was wrong about Sunrise. It's gorgeous, yes--I'd say it's the most technically accomplished silent film I've ever seen, and probably better aesthetically than anything for about ten years after it--but the visuals absolutely tell the story. And I shouldn't have been that surprised, but everything about it delights me. From the "interactive" intertitles to the amazing cinematography to the way the whole thing has an archetypal, fairy-tale sensibility, I love it. It's a silent film that is absolutely perfect as a silent film, rather than it being a limit imposed by technology (and by 1927, those limits were about to disappear). And I know that silent film proponents will argue that silent film shouldn't be judged as technologically limited, but one has to admit that some filmmakers did a lot better than others at non-verbal storytelling.
The Masters of Cinema blu-ray disc is, too, a strong argument for having more silent/black and white film on HD formats. The picture is amazing, and I'm so used to seeing silent pictures on fuzzy washed-out prints that it was a relief. I wonder how many blu-ray producers are going back to original sources and really doing right by the film and the format.
I've also been watching some von Stroheim (Blind Husbands, Foolish Wives) and von Sternberg (only Der Blaue Engel so far, but I've got a Dietrich collection waiting for me) in an effort to fill some of the holes in my film education. Interesting stuff! Though I find Stroheim more interesting as a person than a filmmaker--though of course those things are intricately related. He's just so absurd and, ultimately, tragic. No opinion yet on Sternberg but I will observe that Dietrich was pretty hot before she became MARLENE DIETRICH with scary cheekbones. And I enjoyed the film, especially Emil Jannings, and to bring this back to Murnau I need to see The Last Laugh.
This entry is also posted at http://my-daroga.dreamwidth.org/268710.html. Feel free to comment wherever you want.