I am not a big fan of domestic melodramas but I have to give some credit to this one. Some shots in this movie would be difficult to film even today.

The movie uses two women - one from the city and the rural wife - to expose the man's internal feelings. The city woman portrays corruption and modernity while the rural wife is quite opposite - she's virtuous with good intentions and portrays purity. Throughout the process, the city is shown to corrupt the marriage between the man and his wife and then serves to renew and even mature their relationship. As the man spends time with the city woman, he becomes corrupted and zombie-like but when he spends time with his wife in the city, their love is renewed with positive change as their relationship blossoms again.

The two of my favorite scenes got to be the first boat ride when the man attempts to murder his wife, and when the man walks out with his wife out of the chapel where a tracking shot follows the couple as their walk through the city and several film layers. The boat ride seemed really peaceful, even with the cruel intentions behind it, and you can only admire the camerawork here. The shot, when they walk out the chapel is so romantic - the city is moving around them and they don't even notice. They only notice the presence of each other. Both of these scenes are visually fascinating and the production like that it rarely met in films today.

This is a really riveting film, sometimes thought to be the greatest of all. I tend to ignore the term "greatest," but it is a really dynamic and creative piece. It involves a man who becomes obsessed with sex and leaving his seemingly dull life. He meets a sort of flapper who wants to take him away to the big city. But first he must do away with his wife. When an attempt fails, things are thrown into chaos. Murnau is certainly about as inventive as any film director in history. When one realizes what he does in1927, it is astonishing. Both principals are very good. Of course, silent films do depend on emoting, but within its bounds this one seems to really work. An important element of this is whether we, the audience, can forgive this guy, let alone his wife.

In that first year of the Academy Awards when for the only time players were nominated for their whole body of work that came out in that period rather than for one particular performance, Janet Gaynor was so honored with the Best Actress Award. Besides Sunrise Gaynor was also acknowledged in the award for her work in Seventh Heaven and Street Angel.

But in Sunrise has any lasting importance it is because it is the most honored work of German director F.W. Murnau who succumbed to the lure of Hollywood and created this film as his first American production. Murnau did only four more films and died in 1931 prematurely in a car crash. Being a gay man, I'm sure he would not have found the atmosphere of the Nazi controlled cinema that would come to his native country very shortly. Unlike Emil Jannings who returned to Germany because of his language problems here in America with the coming of sound and who liked the new Germany, Murnau would not have found a producer like Joseph Goebbels very congenial.

There is no hint of the nationality of the leads George O'Brien and Janet Gaynor or the rest of the cast. It was deliberately so, I believe as Murnau was trying for a universal story about true love and virtue triumphing. Gaynor in both the silent and talking cinema nearly always played women of rural background as she is here. Her husband O'Brien is having a tough go on the farm and falls prey to a silent screen seductress played by Margaret Livingston. Her advice to just kill the wife and run off with her is met with horror. But it does prey on O'Brien's mind. Gaynor senses something wrong and becomes afraid of her husband for a time.

The story is a simple one, but the cinematography is mesmerizing. In fact Sunrise won another Oscar, the first awarded for best cinematography. The images created by Murnau of the city, especially the fair where Gaynor and O'Brien rekindle their romance will stay with you. And Sunrise has good special effects, especially the flood sequence.

George O'Brien was a popular leading man in the sound and early talking era. He first gained attention in John Ford's classic silent western, The Iron Horse. As the Thirties progressed he went down in popularity and was doing mostly B westerns. Ford always kept him in mind though, you might remember him as Captain Collingwood in Fort Apache and post commander Major Allshard in She Wore A Yellow Ribbon. He was also a foolhardy Colonel who gets killed by the renegade Cheyenne in Cheyenne Autumn which was his farewell film.

I was interested in the fact that Murnau made very little use in this film of subtitles, fewer here than in most silents. He preferred to let his cinematography tell the story.

And it's a beautifully told tale.