Well, I had to include at least one artsy-fartsy pick, right? And I do not know if I can get more esoteric than Sunrise, a silent film made in 1927, directed by F.W. Murnau.
It is not the melodramatic story that transports me. It is the intoxicating reverie of the country and the city that Murnau and his smashing team created on the back lots of Hollywood. Charles Rosher and Karl Struss shot the film (and won Oscars for their work), while Rochus Gliese handled the superb art direction, and Frank Williams assisted with special effects. Sunrise is a phenomenal technical achievement that would not be matched until Welles got his own paintbox fourteen years later for Citizen Kane.
In fact, Sunrise was the Terminator or Avatar of its time. It was so groundbreaking and astonishing to the Academy that they awarded Sunrise a special Oscar for being the most unique and artistic production that year, an award that has never been given to any other film in all the history of the Oscars.
Murnau was a German director who had already made a significant name for himself at Ufa, making other masterpieces such as: Nosferatu, Faust, and the most highly regarded, The Last Laugh (Der letzte Mann). Murnau had been a trailblazer his entire career and could work in any genre. His films could be expressionistic in style, realistic, supernatural, surrealistic, or often times a blend of all or some of these styles in a single film. He would do anything and everything to create the film's milieu, including forced perspective, models, cut-outs, midgets, mattes, opticals, what have you. But his biggest breakthrough was the way he moved the camera. In the The Last Laugh Murnau made the camera a subjective observer in the film, an actor. And the camera now went everywhere: through walls and glass, up and down, so free and expressive. Murnau's imagination seemed to know no bounds. And he changed the American cinema because of it, perhaps more than any other filmmaker ever.
William Fox hired Murnau to make a 'prestige' film, like The Last Laugh had been, in Hollywood, one that would win a lot of trophies. Fox gave Murnau and his team carte blanche to make the picture. And two big-time movie stars were in it, Janet Gaynor (she also won an Oscar for her performance in Sunrise and two other films) and George O'Brien.
Sunrise was a flop, of course, like so many masterpieces. The critics loved it to pieces and sang its praises but audiences were not impressed.
Despite the critical approbation and the Oscars for Sunrise, Fox eventually lost patience with Murnau and eventually forced him out. One of Murnau's Fox films, Four Devils, has been lost forever. We only have still photographs of the film.
Just as Murnau was to announce signing a new deal with Paramount he was killed in an car accident. He was forty-three. The most famous and poignant 'story' related to his death is that Murnau, who was gay, never picked his chauffeurs for their driving abilities. He always picked them for their looks.
Top 3 sequences, moments in Sunrise:
1. The long tracking shot with George O'Brien going to meet Margaret Livingstone.
2. The train ride in to the City, an absolute heart-rending, tearful journey about forgiveness and true unconditional love.
3. The sequence right after Janet Gaynor and O'Brien walk out of the church, in to the street, and then a magical, bucolic, idyllic meadow, so in love again.
The clips below are not very good quality. I encourage you to watch them but mostly to get a taste of what Sunrise is. There is a fantastic Blu-ray edition of Sunrise that contains maybe the greatest and most illuminating commentary I have heard for a film. It is also available on regular dvd. For the folks that are willing to make this dreamlike journey, from the country, to the City, and back again, I most heartily recommend you purchasing Sunrise.
All my love, my angels,
Ardent
No comments:
Post a Comment