Sunrise [Special Edition] [DVD]

In 1928 Sunrise won Oscars for Janet Gaynor as Best Actress and cinematography as a "Unique and Artistic Picture". In 1967 it was declared "the single greatest masterwork in the history of cinema" by key French new wave magazine Cahiers du Cinema. Released with a synchronised score and effects soundtrack but no dialogue, it is a cinematic landmark from the transition period between silent cinema and the talkies. Beginning as a prototype film noir in which a farmer (George O' Brien) plans the murder of his wife (Gaynor) with his vacationing lover from the city (Margaret Livingstone), the film develops from tense thriller into a story of reawakened love and redemption.

Anticipating Orson Welles's artistic freedom on Citizen Kane (1941), German expressionist director FW Murnau was given carte blanche following the huge American success of The Last Laugh (1924). The result was this poetic fable making inventive use of every technical device then available, including in-camera multiple exposures and superimpositions, long elegant tracking shots, forced perspectives, complex miniatures and synchronised sound, as well as the largest single-street-scene set ever built. The result is a film that influenced everything from Hitchcock suspense to Titanic (1997) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Murnau summons powerful performances from his principal players--Gaynor would later headline A Star Is Born (1937) and O'Brien would take important roles in several classic John Ford westerns--while the transcendent finale evokes and reworks the ending of the director's earlier classic, Nosferatu (1922). Though now inevitably dated Sunrise remains essential for anyone seriously interested in the development of cinematic art.

On the DVD:Sunrise is presented on an immaculately produced two-disc special edition. Though restored to full length and presented in the original 1.2:1 ratio with the complete music and effects soundtrack, the film has been taken from a print made in 1936, the original camera negative having been destroyed in a fire. As a result this is the best possible modern presentation of Sunrise, though the print, while perfectly acceptable, is very grainy, lined and flickery by contemporary standards. The mono sound has been superbly restored and is remarkably effective for its vintage; an alternative stereo musical track recorded for recent reissue sounds excellent. The film also boasts a commentary by John Bailey: apart from talking a little too much about how beautiful the lighting is, Bailey offers seriously in-depth knowledge about the film and about Murnau that really puts everything into historical context and explains the constant technical ingenuity.

The second disc presents the useful A Song of Two Humans, a 12-minute visual essay by film historian R Dixon Smith, and almost 10 minutes of outtakes with optional commentary by John Bailey, as well as a trailer, stills gallery and notes explaining the nature of the restoration. There is also an excellent 40-minute documentary Murnau's 4 Devils: Traces of a Lost Film, telling the story of the director's lost follow up to Sunrise. Microsoft Word and PDF files available via DVD-ROM present various incarnations of the screenplays for both Sunrise and 4 Devils. --Gary S. Dalkin

F. W. Murnau — invited to America by William Fox, the promise of complete artistic freedom, and a blank cheque — made Sunrise on the cusp of two eras: it represents the silent film at the peak of its poetic sophistication, and the sound film in its infancy. Fox told Murnau to take his time, to make any film he wished, and Sunrise was completed without any studio interference — as though with a dying flourish in a medium which at that moment had achieved a startling richness of expression. It was the swan song of the era.

Restored high-definition transfer, progressively encoded

Original English intertitles

Original Movietone score (mono) and alternate Olympic Chamber Orchestra score (stereo)

Full-length audio commentary by ASC cinematographer John Bailey

Outtakes with either John Bailey commentary or intertitles

Murnau's 4 Devils: Traces of a Lost Film — Janet Bergstrom's 40-minute documentary about the lost film Murnau made for Fox after Sunrise.

Original theatrical trailer

Original 'photoplay' script by Carl Mayer with Murnau's handwritten annotations (150 pages in pdf format)

40-page booklet with essays, reprints, and rare production stills

Conceived by Murnau and written by Carl Mayer while they were both still in Germany, Sunrise takes a simple situation — the marriage of a peasant couple (George O'Brien and Janet Gaynor) from a country hamlet, invaded by a seductress from the city (Margaret Livingston) — and elevates it to the realm of fable, stripped of melodrama yet brimming with poetic impulses. George O'Brien becomes almost gothically depressed by his affair and plots a Dreiser-like boat accident for Gaynor, his sweet wife. This doom hovers and flits like moonlight over the rest of the film, which lithely tries to dodge it.

Murnau captivated the Americans with his legendary "invisible" tracking shots, and together with double exposures, expressive lighting, and distorted sets, the viewer is immersed in the fate of these simple characters. Sunrise won three Oscars at the very first Academy Awards ceremony honouring the 1927-1928 season. Janet Gaynor won for Best Actress; Charles Rosher and Karl Struss for Best Cinematography; and the film itself won a special Oscar for "Unique and Artistic Picture", the only time this award has ever been given. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present this restored edition of what Cahiers du cinéma described as "the single greatest masterwork in the history of the cinema".