''Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans'' (also known as ''Sunrise'') is a 1927 American silent romantic

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

directed by

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

director

F. W. Murnau Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe; December 28, 1888March 11, 1931) was a German film director, producer and screenwriter. He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at t ...

(in his American film debut) and starring George O'Brien,

Janet Gaynor Janet Gaynor (born Laura Augusta Gainor; October 6, 1906 – September 14, 1984) was an American film, stage, and television actress. Gaynor began her career as an extra in shorts and silent films. After signing with Fox Film Corporation (later ...

, and

Margaret Livingston Margaret Livingston (born Marguerite Livingston; November 25, 1895 – December 13, 1984), sometimes credited as Marguerite Livingstone or Margaret Livingstone, was an American film actress and businesswoman during the silent film era. She is ...

. The story was adapted by

Carl Mayer Carl Mayer (20 November 1894 – 1 July 1944) was an Austrians, Austrian screenwriter who wrote or co-wrote the screenplays to ''The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'' (1920), ''The Head of Janus'' (1920), ''The Haunted Castle (1921 film), The Haunted C ...

from the short story "The Excursion to Tilsit", from the 1917 collection with the same title by

Hermann Sudermann Hermann Sudermann (30 September 1857 – 21 November 1928) was a German dramatist and novelist. Life Early career Sudermann was born at Matzicken, a village to the east of Heydekrug in the Province of Prussia (now Macikai and Šilutė, i ...

."The Screen"
Mordaunt Hall, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', September 24, 1927."New Pictures: Oct. 3, 1927"
''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'', October 3, 1927 Murnau chose to use the then new

Fox Movietone Movietone News is a newsreel that ran from 1928 to 1963 in the United States. Under the name British Movietone News, it also ran in the United Kingdom from 1929 to 1986, in France also produced by Fox-Europa, in Australia and New Zealand until 197 ...

sound-on-film Sound-on-film is a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying a picture is recorded on photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog ...

system, making ''Sunrise'' one of the first feature films with a synchronized musical score and

sound effects A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. Traditi ...

soundtrack. The film incorporated

Charles Gounod Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...

's 1872 composition ''

Funeral March of a Marionette Funeral March of a Marionette (French: ) is a short piece by Charles Gounod. It was originally written for solo piano in 1872 and orchestrated in 1879. It is perhaps best known as the theme music for the television program ''Alfred Hitchcock Presen ...

'', which was later used as the theme for the television series ''

Alfred Hitchcock Presents ''Alfred Hitchcock Presents'' is an American television anthology series created, hosted and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, aired on CBS and NBC between 1955 and 1965. It features dramas, thrillers and mysteries. Between 1962 and 1965 it was ren ...

'' (1955–1965).

Frédéric Chopin Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leadin ...

's A minor prelude also features prominently in orchestral arrangement. ''Sunrise'' won the

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

for Unique and Artistic Picture at the

1st Academy Awards The 1st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and hosted by AMPAS president Douglas Fairbanks, honored the best films from 1 August 1927 to 31 July 1928 and took place on May 1 ...

in 1929. Janet Gaynor won the first Academy Award for

Best Actress in a Leading Role The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. ...

for her performance in the film (the award was also for her performances in 1927's '' 7th Heaven'' and 1928's '' Street Angel''). The film's legacy has endured, and it is now widely considered a masterpiece and one of the greatest films ever made. Many have called it the greatest film of the silent era. In 1989, ''Sunrise'' was one of the 25 films selected by the U.S.

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

for preservation in the

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...

for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The

Academy Film Archive The Academy Film Archive is part of the Academy Foundation, established in 1944 with the purpose of organizing and overseeing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ educational and cultural activities, including the preservation of m ...

preserved ''Sunrise'' in 2004. The 2007 update of the

American Film Institute The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees. Leade ...

's list of the 100 greatest American films ranked it number 82, and the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

's 2012 ''

Sight & Sound ''Sight and Sound'' (also spelled ''Sight & Sound'') is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). It conducts the well-known, once-a-decade ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time, ongoing ...

'' critics' poll named it the fifth-best film in the history of motion pictures, while directors named it 22nd. Although the original 35mm negative of the original American version of ''Sunrise'' was destroyed in the

1937 Fox vault fire The 1937 Fox vault fire was a major fire that broke out in a 20th Century-Fox film-storage facility in Little Ferry, New Jersey, United States, on July 9, 1937. Flammable nitrate film had previously contributed to several fires in film-industr ...

, a new negative was created from a surviving print.

Plot

A vacationing Woman from the City (

) lingers in a lakeside town for weeks. After dark, she goes to a farmhouse where the Man ( George O'Brien) and the Wife (

) live with their child. She whistles from the fence outside. The Man is torn, but finally departs, leaving his wife with the memories of better times when they were deeply in love. The man and woman meet in the moonlight and kiss passionately. She wants him to sell his farm—which has not done well recently—to join her in the city. When she suggests that he solve the problem of his wife by drowning her, he throttles her violently, but even that dissolves in a passionate embrace. The Woman gathers bundles of reeds so that when the boat is overturned, the Man can stay afloat. The Wife suspects nothing when her husband suggests going on an outing, but when they set off across the lake, she soon grows suspicious. He prepares to throw her overboard, but when she pleads for his mercy, he realizes he cannot do it. He rows frantically for shore, and when the boat reaches land, the Wife flees. She boards a trolley, and he follows, begging her not to be afraid of him. The trolley brings them to the city. Her fear and disappointment are overwhelming. He plies her with flowers and bread and finally she stops crying and accepts his gifts. Emerging back on the street, they are touched to see a bride enter a church for her processional, and follow her inside to watch the wedding. The Man breaks down and asks her to forgive him. After a tearful reconciliation, they continue their adventure in the city, having their photograph taken together and visiting a funfair. As darkness falls, they board the trolley for home. Soon they are drifting back across the lake under the moonlight. A sudden storm causes their boat to begin sinking. The Man remembers the two bundles of reeds he placed in the boat earlier and ties the bundles around the Wife. The boat capsizes, and the Man awakes on a rocky shore. He gathers the townspeople to search the lake, but all they find is a broken bundle of reeds floating in the water. Convinced the Wife has drowned, the grief-stricken Man stumbles home. The Woman From the City goes to his house, assuming their plan has succeeded. The Man begins to choke her. Then the Maid calls to him that his wife is alive, so he releases the Woman and runs to the Wife, who survived by clinging to one last bundle of reeds. The Man kneels by the Wife's bed as she slowly opens her eyes. The Man and the Wife kiss, while the Woman From the City's carriage rolls down the hill toward the lake, and the film dissolves to the sunrise.

Cast

* George O'Brien as The Man *

as The Wife *

as The Woman From the City *

Bodil Rosing Bodil Rosing (born Bodil Frederikke Hammerich; December 27, 1877 December 31, 1941) was a Danish-American film actress in the silent and sound eras. Early years Bodil Hammerich was born in Copenhagen, the daughter of music dean Angel Hammeri ...

as The Maid *

J. Farrell MacDonald John Farrell MacDonald (June 6, 1875 – August 2, 1952) was an American character actor and director. He played supporting roles and occasional leads. He appeared in over 325 films over a four-decade career from 1911 to 1951, and directed fort ...

as The Photographer *

Ralph Sipperly Ralph Wilson Sipperly (1890–1928) was a comic and character actor who appeared in ten films (mostly silents) between 1923 and 1927. His most notable portrayal was as the barber in the Academy Award-winning film ''Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans'' ...

as The Barber *

Jane Winton Jane Winton (October 10, 1905 – September 22, 1959) was an American film actress, dancer, opera soprano, writer, and painter. Early years Winton was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1905. The deaths of her father when she was four year ...

as The Manicure Girl *

Arthur Housman Arthur Housman (October 10, 1889 – April 8, 1942) was an American actor in films during both the silent film era and the Golden Age of Hollywood. Career Arthur Housman was one of the first screen comedians known to the public by name, and on ...

as The Obtrusive Gentleman *

Eddie Boland Eddie Boland (December 27, 1885 – February 3, 1935) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 110 films between 1912 and 1937, mostly in comedic supporting roles. Among his best-known roles were "The Obliging Gentleman" in F. ...

as The Obliging Gentleman *

Sally Eilers Dorothea Sally Eilers (December 11, 1908 – January 5, 1978) was an American actress. Early life Eilers was born in New York City to a Jewish-American mother, Paula (or Pauline) Schoenberger, and a German-American father, Hio Peter Eilers ( ...

as Woman in Dance Hall with failing straps (uncredited) *

Gino Corrado Gino Corrado (born Gino Liserani; 9 February 1893 – 23 December 1982) was an Italian-born film actor."Obituaries." ''Variety'' (Archive: 1905-2000); Los Angeles. Vol. 309, Iss. 10, (Jan 5, 1983): 78-79. Via Proquest. He appeared in more ...

as Manager of Hair Salon (uncredited) *

Herman Bing Herman Bing (March 30, 1889 – January 9, 1947) was a German-American character actor. He acted in more than 120 films and many of his parts were uncredited. Biography Bing was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He was son of the opera ...

as Streetcar Conductor (uncredited) *

Gibson Gowland Gibson Gowland (4 January 1877 – 9 September 1951) was an English film actor. Biography Gowland was born in Spennymoor, County Durham. He started work as a sailor and later became the mate on a ship. For several years from the age of 25 he ...

as Angry Driver (uncredited)

Style

''Sunrise'' was made by

, a

director who was one of the leading figures in

German Expressionism German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...

, a style that uses distorted

art design Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of what ...

for symbolic effect. Murnau was invited by William Fox to make an Expressionist film in Hollywood. The resulting film features enormous stylized sets that create an exaggerated and fairy-tale world; the city street set alone reportedly cost over US$200,000 to build and was re-used in many subsequent Fox productions, including

John Ford John Martin Feeney (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973), known professionally as John Ford, was an American film director and naval officer. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. He ...

's ''

Four Sons ''Four Sons'' is a 1928 American silent drama film directed and produced by John Ford and written for the screen by Philip Klein from a story by I. A. R. Wylie first published in the '' Saturday Evening Post'' as "Grandmother Bernle Learns Her ...

'' (1928). Much of the exterior shooting was done at

Lake Arrowhead, California Lake Arrowhead is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place (CDP) in the San Bernardino Mountains of San Bernardino County, California, surrounded by the San Bernardino National Forest, and surrounding the eponymous Lake Arrowhead ...

. Full of cinematic innovations, the groundbreaking cinematography (by

Charles Rosher Charles G. Rosher, A.S.C. (17 November 1885 – 15 January 1974) was an English-born cinematographer who worked from the early days of silent films through the 1950s. He was Mary Pickford's favourite cinematographer and a personal friend, shoo ...

and

Karl Struss Karl Struss, A.S.C. (November 30, 1886 – December 15, 1981) was an American photographer and a cinematographer of the 1900s through the 1950s. He was also one of the earliest pioneers of 3-D films. While he mostly worked on films, such as F. ...

) features particularly praised

tracking shot A tracking shot is any shot where the camera follows backward, forward or moves alongside the subject being recorded. In cinematography, the term refers to a shot in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly that is then placed on rails – ...

s. Titles appear sparingly, with long sequences of pure action and the bulk of the story told in Murnau's signature style. The extensive use of

forced perspective Forced perspective is a technique that employs optical illusion to make an object appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is. It manipulates human visual perception through the use of scaled objects and the correlation ...

is striking, particularly in a shot of the City with normal-sized people and sets in the foreground and smaller figures in the background by much smaller sets. The characters go unnamed, lending them a universality conducive to symbolism.

Veit Harlan Veit Harlan (22 September 1899 – 13 April 1964) was a German film director and actor. Harlan reached the highpoint of his career as a director in the Nazi era; most notably his antisemitic film ''Jud Süß'' (1940) makes him controversial ...

compared his German remake ''

Die Reise nach Tilsit ''The Journey to Tilsit'' (German: ''Die Reise nach Tilsit'') is a 1939 German drama film directed by Veit Harlan and starring Kristina Söderbaum, Philip Dorn and Anna Dammann. Synopsis Elske faithfully loves her husband Endrik as he is seduced ...

'' (1939), pointing to the symbolism and soft focus of ''Sunrise'' he claimed that it was a poem, whereas his realistic ''Die Reise nach Tilsit'' was a film.

Release

''Sunrise'' premiered on September 23, 1927. It was accompanied by the first ever talking newsreels, which attracted much of the initial interest in the film.

Reception

Mordaunt Hall Mordaunt Hall (1 November 1878 – 2 July 1973) was the first regularly assigned motion picture critic for ''The New York Times'', working from October 1924 to September 1934.The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' hailed ''Sunrise'' as "A Film Masterpiece". A reviewer for ''

'', however, called its story "meagre" while writing that the film overall "manages to remain picturesquely soporific for a long evening". ''Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans'' is now widely considered by film critics and historians to be one of the greatest films ever made.

Awards and nominations

Academy Award wins (1929) * Best Unique and Artistic Picture (This Oscar, only awarded at the

, was at the time as prestigious as '' Outstanding Picture'', but the Academy has since decided that the higher honor went to ''

Wings A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expresse ...

'' in the latter category.) *

– Janet Gaynor (At this time acting awards were given for an actor's entire body of work in a year, so the award was for her work on this film, '' 7th Heaven'', and '' Street Angel'') * Best Cinematography – Charles Rosher and Karl Struss Academy Award nominations (1929) * Best Art Direction –

Rochus Gliese Rochus Gliese (6 January 1891 — 22 December 1978) was a German actor, director, production designer, and Academy Award-nominated art director of early films from the 1910s and 1920s. He was born in Berlin. He is most remembered in the Uni ...

Other distinctions * 1989 – Inclusion into the

* 2002, 2012: Ranked in the top 10 of the decennial ''

'' critics' poll * AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions – No. 63 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains – The Woman from the City (Nominated Villain) *

AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – 10th Anniversary Edition was the 2007 updated version of AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies. The original list was unveiled in 1998. Criteria AFI asked jurors to consider the following criteria in their selection proce ...

– No. 82

Home media

20th Century Fox originally released ''Sunrise'' on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

in Region 1, but only as a special limited edition available only by mailing in proofs-of-purchase for other DVD titles in their "20th Century Fox Studio Classics" line, or as part of the

box set A box set or (its original name) boxed set is a set of items (for example, a compilation of books, musical recordings, films or television programs) traditionally packaged in a box and offered for sale as a single unit. Music Artists and bands ...

''Studio Classics: The 'Best Picture' Collection''. The DVD includes commentary, a copy of the film's trailer, details about Murnau's

lost film A lost film is a feature or short film that no longer exists in any studio archive, private collection, public archive or the U.S. Library of Congress. Conditions During most of the 20th century, U.S. copyright law required at least one copy o ...

'' Four Devils'',

outtakes An outtake is a portion of a work (usually a film or music recording) that is removed in the editing process and not included in the work's final, publicly released version. In the digital era, significant outtakes have been appended to CD and D ...

, and many more features. In late 2008, Fox released the "Murnau, Borzage and Fox Box Set" in some markets. Both Movietone and European silent versions of ''Sunrise'' are included. A documentary of the three individuals is also part of the collection. ''Sunrise'' has also been released on DVD in the UK as part of the

Masters of Cinema Masters of Cinema is a line of DVD and Blu-ray releases published through Eureka Entertainment. Because of the uniformly branded and spine-numbered packaging and the standard inclusion of booklets and analysis by recurring film historians, the l ...

series. In September 2009, Masters of Cinema released a 2-disc DVD reissue, containing both the Movietone version and the shorter Czech print found on the 2008 "Murnau, Borzage and Fox" DVD, as well as the extra features found on the previous Masters of Cinema DVD release and the Fox Studio Classics release. The film was released simultaneously on

Blu-ray Disc The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and c ...

, with both versions of the feature rendered in 1080p

High-definition video High-definition video (HD video) is video of higher resolution and quality than standard-definition. While there is no standardized meaning for ''high-definition'', generally any video image with considerably more than 480 vertical scan lines (No ...

, and both the stereo and the mono soundtracks rendered in

Dolby TrueHD Dolby TrueHD is a lossless, multi-channel audio codec developed by Dolby Laboratories for home video, used principally in Blu-ray Disc and compatible hardware. Dolby TrueHD, along with Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3) and Dolby AC-4, is one of the int ...

lossless audio In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compression ...

. This UK release was the first occasion of a silent film being released on Blu-ray. The Blu-ray disk is apparently not region-encoded, and thus should be viewable on any Blu-ray disk player. In January 2014, the film was released in the US on a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack by 20th Century Fox. The film's copyright was renewed, and fell into the public domain on January 1, 2023.

References

External links

* *
''Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans''
film review by

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

''Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans''
essay at ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the creat ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans 1927 films 1927 romantic drama films American romantic drama films American silent feature films American black-and-white films Films based on short fiction Films based on works by Hermann Sudermann Films set in Germany Films featuring a Best Actress Academy Award-winning performance Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award Fox Film films Films directed by F. W. Murnau Films produced by William Fox Films with screenplays by Carl Mayer Transitional sound films United States National Film Registry films Early sound films Articles containing video clips 1920s American films Silent romantic drama films Silent American drama films