Sunrise. 1927. Directed by F. W. Murnau.

(5/14/01-5/21/01)

Sunrise is well-established as a classic. However, having seen it a number of times now I think I have to be honest and admit that I really don't like it that much. It's just not a favorite of mine. I wonder if I will ever learn to appreciate and love it, to really see what it is that other people admire about it.

I didn't like the way the film shifted gears. The first part is a stark piece about a man who is persuaded to kill his loyal wife so that he can be with another woman. At the last moment he discovers that he can't do it. This part of the film is executed withgrim seriousness. Then he has to win back his wife's trust. But then, with everything for the moment resolved, the film turns into a series of silly comic vignettes in the city. Husband and wife go to a photographer to have their picture taken and knock over a statue of the winged victory or Venus De Milo and think they've broken it. There is an episode at a carnival with a drunken pig after which (or maybe before which) they do the peasant dance. I suppose that it can be said that life is like this, but in the film it just doesn't work. For me. And when the storm comes at the end and we think that the wife has indeed drowned I just couldn't get interested. Maybe I was too tired.

Another problem was that I didn't find Janet Gaynor appealing or even interesting. She did nothing for me--to put it bluntly. On the other hand, I was quite impressed with the performance which Murnau got out of George O'Brien. He walks around like a zombie in the first part of the film when he is under the spell of the temptress from the city. (He pulls it off and it isn't laughable.) And then he is awkward and poignant as he tries to win his wife back. And he is touchingly ill-at-ease in the big city. Not bad for someone who is known primarily as a b-Western star.

The film does have its own special texture, its own special flavor. One thing I did like was the montage that illustrates night life in the city that the villainess describes to the man. This was very reminiscent of the European avant-garde of the twenties. And I vaguely rememberthat there was a sohisticated use of titles. I think that when the villainess suggests to the man that he kill jis wife the words seem to melt on the screen--or grow and become more emphatic--something like that.

The first part of the film is very different from the average American film--of the 20s or otherwise. Instead of having scenes that are acted out it unfolds in a series of what you might call living photographs. Or tableaus. Shots in which the participants are posed, but really don't do anything as people do in real life. It was very stylized.

I was tired when I saw it, but I have seen it on other occasions and Sunrise just isn't one of my favorites. As much as I admire its photography and set designs and so forth I really don't enter into it emotionally.