Sunday, June 26, 2011

31. Sunrise

Sunrise
1927

Well, this movie blew my mind in a couple of different ways.  First off, I realized that quite a few things I had taken for fact were wrong.  For instance, I always thought that the first Best Picture Oscar went to The Wings but actually there were two Best Picture Oscars that year.  The first was for production which indeed went to the The Wings, but the second was for best unique and artistic production which went to this film.  I also thought that the first talkie was The Jazz Singer but in reality this movie had a line of dialogue and several crowd scenes audible.  So basically, everything we know is a lie.

This film is about a really attractive man who starts to have an affair with an urban woman.  She talks him into killing his wife because for some reason it is always the woman who convinces the man to commit the murder.  What is that about?  Anyway, the husband chickens out and spends the rest of the day "making it up to her" (um, okay?).  More stuff happens but I try to never spoil it for people.

This movie is really, really good.  I know you are supposed to think that given that critics adore this film.  Sometimes, you can't fight the mainstream and you just have to go with it, and this is one of those times.  You can seen from the above picture how the sultry temptress haunts the main character.  Each scene brings some new emotion or technique to the table (my favorite being the wedding scene), so I will not even attempt to vocalize anymore but rest assured you will be impressed.  The acting is really good (which sadly is refreshing).  The plot was not the greatest.  If my husband tried to kill me, let's just say he would not be able to make up for it with a stroll in the city.  The movie is never boring though, so it is definitely worth a watch.

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

Ranked #82 in AFI's top 100.  I think we will see every movie on the list through the course of the book.

Anybody who is anybody knows that Murnau hates title cards (I am kidding of course; even I am not that pretentious)!  They become virtually nonexistent towards the end of the film.

Available on YouTube.  First part:

2 comments:

  1. Yes, this one is really good. The best from Murnau and top 5 of silent movies. It is such a simple story, but it is so very well told almost without titlecards. Thumbs up.

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    1. Yes, I had never heard of it before so it was certainly a nice surprise!

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