Sunrise

Question 1

Cultural context

Answer 1

• Murnau was a German expressionist filmmaker
• German expressionism was a stand-alone art movement and hybridisation with Hollywood was not initially welcomed
• Initial resistance to commercialism vs aesthetics morphed into something that had a profound influence on Hollywood e.g. Film Noir 40s/50s/60s
• Sunrise looks at change and questions a man’s place in modern society
• Murnau grew up in a rural areas and Sunrise is in many ways about ‘summer in the countryside’

Question 2

Production context

Answer 2

• Based on a novel by Hermann Sudermann - Script developed by Carl Mayer
• Murnau brought many of his German production team to Hollywood
• Fox gave Murnau creative freedom - sets were spectacular and stylised to create the fantasy diegesis to story takes place within
• 1927 was the year sound became wider used in cinema
• Sunrise was silent but used an innovative synchronised soundtrack

Question 3

Social context and representation

Answer 3

• Sunrise acts as a metaphor for ordinary people’s fear of cities and modernities
• Cities represented as decadent but alluring. The woman is a glamourous ‘flapper’ adding to the temptation and moral threat - satin, cigarettes and bobbed hair
• Temptation evidenced by the man, who initially believes he must destroy his old way of life - irony linked to Murnau’s Hollywood move
• The decision not to name the characters adds to the symbolism that ‘this could happen to anyone’ - Wading through the mud scene represents their relationship

Question 4

Film form, Realism and aesthetics

Answer 4

• Cinematography includes superimposition, imagery, symbolism - camera ‘follwed’ characters through narrative space
• Well known for limited use of intertitles choosing instead tracking shots to ‘tell the story with the camera’ - reminiscent of Hitchcock in 40s/50s/60s
• The camera was an embodiment of German expressionism - a dreamlike depth. Other techniques included distortions of distance between character and setting
• Nowhere near as expressive as German expressionism but mirroring the psychological and emotional distress of the characters
• Bells used as a motif throughout
• Typically, Murnau used opposing techniques, both expressionistic and realist
• Montage sequence (juxtaposition of unrelated images so the spectator is asked to construct meaning) with deep focus and long takes
• Deep focus and long takes are a Hollywood convention whereas montage was a tool used by silent soviet filmmakers as propaganda
• Single source lighting used throughout
• Use of shadow was common in German expressionism while in Sunrise it is incorporated in key scenes e.g. renewing their love in the church
• Light into dark and vice versa is used as a metaphor for the man’s existential angst
• Hyper-real body movement as producer of meaning common in Sunrise as a visual signifier

Question 5

What was German expressionism and how did Sunrise borrow it

Answer 5

• Part of a larger post-WW1 art movement
• Reaction against realism e.g. Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Subjective, emotive experiences - high impact twisted characters, themes of instanity or obsession
• Chiaroscuro lighting an distorted graphical composition - heavily influenced film noir. Sunrise’s lighting focuses on binary oppositions between good and evil but also country and city
• Mise-en-scene is more important than ‘dialogue’

Question 6

Cinematography

Answer 6

• The opening vacation mmontage employs multiple exposures and super-impositions to convey summertime in an expressionist style
• The film uses light sources such as a candle on the table and light through a window - this use of single light sources is typical of the late silent period
• When the man and the wife renew their love in the church, they move from shadow into light. The lighting is a metaphor for the renewal of their marriage vows

Question 7

Mise-en-scene

Answer 7

• The film contains many visual oppositions including: day vs night,;the city vs the country; the dangerous woman from the city vs the innocent wife
• Murnau employs ‘forced perspective’ - an expressionist device where objects in the foreground are large, making the background recede
• The mise-en-scene is symbolic, reflecting the characters’ psychological states. The mud the man and the woman from the city wade through is a metaphor for their relationship

Question 8

Editing

Answer 8

• Murnau employs long takes throughout and would often hold a shot longer than is usual in Hollywood film, giving the film a lyrical and poetic quality
• The film’s opening montage employs rapid editing to give a graphic representation of the summer holidays in the city
• The film’s most famous scene, where the man and wife walk through the city not noticing the traffic, use a dissolve shot to merge the city and country together

Question 9

Sound

Answer 9

• Although Sunrise is a silent film, it was synchronised with a musical score
• The sound of bells is used as a motif at various points - bells sound as the man decides to spare his wife. Later, bells are heard again and the man and the wife emerge from the church. Here, bells signal the man’s change as he repents and renews his love for his wife

Question 10

Representations

Answer 10

• The woman from the city represents the ‘flapper’ figure. Flappers were women in the 1920s who enjoyed a new-found freedom and American jazz music. They rejected Victorian modes of dress, favouring short bobbed hair and short shirts. Here the flapper is represented as a threat to the stability of marriage
• The characters are universal types, hence their titles - the man, the wife etc.
• The cityt is represented as a plave of decadence an fascination. The film doesn’t indicate specific locations - it seems to merge the European and American city

Question 11

Aesthetics

Answer 11

Murnau uses long, fluid camera movements. He states, “the camera is the director’s pencil. It should have the greatest possible mobility in order to record the most fleeting harmony of atmosphere”
- At times the camera is subjective, reflecting the eyes of the man. When the man meets the woman from the city, the tracking shot becomes subjective

Question 12

Technological context

Answer 12

• Murnau uses every technical device available to filmmakers at that time. The film exemplifies the late silent period, where filmmaking had reached its artistic peak

Question 13

Institutional context

Answer 13

Sunrise was Fox’s most expensive silent film, intended as a ‘prestige picture’ for Fox to demonstrate that they were purveyors of high cinematic art, as well as mass-produced entertainment. German directors such as Murnau were viewed as artists by Hollywood studios and Fox gave Murnau complete freedom and control on Sunrise
- Although Sunrise earned three academy awards, including the Oscar for best picture, the film failed to recoup costs at the box office

Question 14

Starting points

Answer 14

• Sunrise calls into question Bazin’s notion that realist devices such as long takes and deep-focus are opposed to expressionism. Murnau employs expressionist and realist aesthetics. He utilises both montage and deep-focus and long takes
• The subjective camera serves to merge fantasy and reality

Question 15

Recurring themes

Answer 15

• Narrative oppositions/duality
• The known and the unknown
• Temptation
• Fear of death/consequences of dying
• Alter-ego, other person with us, doppelgänger
• Sale of oneself for material advantage
• The creation/existence of fantastical beings living within ‘normal’ existence
• Notion of being able to control other people
• Extreme situations/excessive responses
• The emotional undercurrent of human existence
• Fascination with and fear of modern urban life and technology