town and country
by Douglas Messerli
Carl Mayer (screenplay, based on a
story by Hermann Sudermann), Katherine Hilliker and H. H. Caldwell (titles), F.
W. Murnau (director) Sunrise: A Song of
Two Humans / 1927
Recognized as one the greatest
movies ever made, F. W. Murnau's Sunrise uses
a dazzling montage of imagery to tell one of the simplest of stories. Although
Murnau's script, written by Carl Mayer, was based on an early Hermann Sudermann
story, published in his Lithuanian
Stories of 1917, the plot will remind American readers of Theodore
Dreiser's An American Tragedy of
1925—although with a much happier ending.
A young farmer, simply called The Man (George O'Brien), has fallen in
love with a woman from the city (The Woman from the City) (Margaret
Livingston), ignoring his formerly beloved wife (The Wife) (Janet Gaynor) and
their new baby. The intrigue of the story, in fact, has begun before the movie,
and what we observe is simply the result of the affair and its aftermath.
Called out into the night by the evil city woman, the man is overwhelmed
by his love for the dark stranger, while the wife is left suffering alone. The
city woman suggests that her lover join her in the city, and when he asks
"What about my wife?" she has a dreadful suggestion: "Well,
couldn't she drown?"
Momentarily the man is outraged, but her kisses and embraces mesmerize
him, and the plan is suddenly underway, as she suggests he buddle together
bulrushes, like a surviving Moses, to help him float away from the boat after
he has overturned it, drowning his wife.
Despite his reluctance and obvious feelings of guilt, he invites his
wife on a trip across the water, which she mistakenly perceives as a new chance
for romance. Murnau brilliantly creates a sense of tension as the boat begins
its voyage by having the family dog break its chains, jump into the water, and
swim out toward them. They return to land where the man again tethers the dog
before proceeding. The wife, delighted by the prospect of travel, is all
smiles, dressed in her best bonnet; but the darkness and grimness of her
husband gradually registers upon her face, changing it to fear and doubt. When
he rises, ready to commit the dreadful act, she is suddenly aware of her fate,
and pleads for her life. The man suddenly regrets his actions and rows to land,
whereupon she races from him, catching a nearby trolley on its voyage to the
city.
He catches up to the trolley and joins her, attempting to reassure that
will no longer hurt her. So has the couple unintentionally begun a journey into
a world opposite of theirs. The rest of the story is one of discovery and
reconciliation as the two attend a wedding, visit a hair salon, dine out, drink
wine, and even dance. They are treated much like the country bumpkins they are:
they are overwhelmed by the wine, encouraged to dance a peasant dance, and, at
one point, even race
He is successful, but his wife appears to have not survived as he and
others search the waters after the storm. An older neighbor, however, travels
"around the point" where he knows the currents move, finding the
nearly drowned wife and bringing her home to safety. The couple fondly look
upon one another as the sun rises, the woman from the city returning to whence
she has come.
Although much of the film was shot in Lake Arrowhead, California, the
farm setting looks like something out of the Baltic instead of any American
space. The thatched huts at the edge of a what might be a huge lake seem an
unlikely place for plowing, the raising of chickens and hogs. It is a fairytale
world that is as unreal as the huge urban landscape of Murnau's city which
might remind one of Paris or Berlin, but looks little like any American city
I've seen. The huge glass-vaulted railroad station, the cavernous restaurant
space, the crowded dancehall, the intense traffic of this city—all exaggerated
by the director's numerous superimpositions of images (created in the camera
itself by blocking out certain parts of scene and reshooting over them)—is
something right out of German Expressionism or even Futurist art. This American
film, the only one to win an Oscar for "Best Picture, Unique and Artistic
Production," is, one might claim, the most un-American-looking film ever
made in this country, which is perhaps what makes it an even more thrilling
artifact, wowing us with its magical sets and images.
The film also is far different in tone from what it might have been in
other hands. Although Sudermann's story clearly is a rural apologia—a work in
which the simple beauty and quietude of country life is presented as superior
to urban living—in Murnau's hands the city wins out. For while the loving
couple at film's end have returned to country life, their redemption has taken
place through the vast energy of city living, even if it has been just for a
day. And the film itself truly comes to life in its urban landscape. The last
third of the movie is almost enervating after what Murnau has already shown us.
The quietude of sunrise denotes a kind a protective stasis, in which both
creators and audience can have little interest. And it is just that earlier
dark fascination of energy and artificed beauty that so attracts The Man to The
Woman from the City, that so overwhelms him he is ready to kill for it. This
farm couple may live happily ever after, but for the audience it can only
signify an "end" and is no longer of interest to us, and in that
sense these characters metaphorically die, while we long for that glorious
trolley ride and the clamorous adventure waiting at its destination.
Los Angeles, February 24, 2012
Reprinted from International
Cinema Review (February 2012).
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