Film CIV
CIV: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
Eightieth on the list of Top 100 films, and a regular entry on the Sight and Sound Critics Top Ten. Maybe not tope ten, but pretty wow. Murnau had done Nosferatu and The Last Laugh/The Last Man, masterpieces of German expressionism, and he had been given carte blanche to make a film in Hollywood by William Fox of Fox Studios. It was not a thing he would be given a second go at - Sunrise looks expensive, and I believe lost money. It had a Movietone soundtrack, but needs to be seen as the high water mark of silent film - with fluid camera movement and acres of montage and split screen.
The man (George O'Brien) - a farmer of some sorts - is having an affair with the Woman from the City (Margaret Livingston), who persuades him he should murder his wife (Janet Gaynor) and move with her to the city. Here we have a sense of the Hitchcockian - although Hitchcock probably picked it up in and from Germany - especially in the scenes when he starts to strangle his wife on the boat. Aside from the backlot footage of a tram to the city, this is all done on sound stages, with what is probably the world's biggest set (unless Gangs of New York trumped it) for the city itself. Incredible
Gaynor won an Oscar for her performances that year (it wasn't just tied to one film), Charles Rosher and Karl Struss won for photography and the film got a unique nod for best artistic achievement.
The extras are a mixed bag - and partially repeat between discs. There is a dull, unfastforwardable, documentary on Murnau's 4 Devils, a lost film, a ten minute featurette on Sunrise, cut scenes and different versions (but not the silent footage, which would be different framed) and DVD-ROM of the scripts for Sunrise and 4 Devils. If you are in a DVD postal library I wouldn't bother with the extras disc.
Totals: 104 (Cinema: 41; DVD: 58; TV: 5)
Eightieth on the list of Top 100 films, and a regular entry on the Sight and Sound Critics Top Ten. Maybe not tope ten, but pretty wow. Murnau had done Nosferatu and The Last Laugh/The Last Man, masterpieces of German expressionism, and he had been given carte blanche to make a film in Hollywood by William Fox of Fox Studios. It was not a thing he would be given a second go at - Sunrise looks expensive, and I believe lost money. It had a Movietone soundtrack, but needs to be seen as the high water mark of silent film - with fluid camera movement and acres of montage and split screen.
The man (George O'Brien) - a farmer of some sorts - is having an affair with the Woman from the City (Margaret Livingston), who persuades him he should murder his wife (Janet Gaynor) and move with her to the city. Here we have a sense of the Hitchcockian - although Hitchcock probably picked it up in and from Germany - especially in the scenes when he starts to strangle his wife on the boat. Aside from the backlot footage of a tram to the city, this is all done on sound stages, with what is probably the world's biggest set (unless Gangs of New York trumped it) for the city itself. Incredible
Gaynor won an Oscar for her performances that year (it wasn't just tied to one film), Charles Rosher and Karl Struss won for photography and the film got a unique nod for best artistic achievement.
The extras are a mixed bag - and partially repeat between discs. There is a dull, unfastforwardable, documentary on Murnau's 4 Devils, a lost film, a ten minute featurette on Sunrise, cut scenes and different versions (but not the silent footage, which would be different framed) and DVD-ROM of the scripts for Sunrise and 4 Devils. If you are in a DVD postal library I wouldn't bother with the extras disc.
Totals: 104 (Cinema: 41; DVD: 58; TV: 5)