A Level Film Studies - Focus Film Factsheet
Sunrise:
A Song of Two
Humans
(1927, F.W. Murnau, USA)
CORE STUDY AREAS 1 - STARTING
Component 2: Global Filmmaking POINTS - Key Elements of Film
Perspectives (AL) Form (Micro Features)
Cinematography
Core Study Areas: • The opening vacation montage employs
Key Elements of Film Form multiple exposures and super-impositions to
Meaning & Response convey summertime in an expressionist style.
The Contexts of Film • The film uses light sources such as a
candle on the table and light through a
Specialist Study Area: window ̶ this use of single light sources
Critical Debates (AL) is typical of the late silent period.
• When the Man and the Wife renew their
Rationale for study love in the church, they move from shadow
• Sunrise is a ‘super-production, an experimental into light. The lighting is a metaphor for
film and a visionary poem’ (Martin Scorsese). the renewal of their marriage vows.
The film is unique in that it is a German Mise en Scene
Expressionist film made with German talent for a • The film contains many visual oppositions
Hollywood Studio (Fox). It reflects silent film at including: day vs. night; the city vs. the
its peak as an art form, released just days before country; the dangerous Woman from
the premiere of the first ‘talkie’, The Jazz Singer. the City vs. the innocent Wife.
• Murnau employs ‘forced perspective’
STARTING POINTS - Useful ̶ an expressionist device where
Sequences and Timings/Links objects in the foreground are large,
making the background recede.
• The Man meets the Woman
from the City (10mins) • The mise en scene is symbolic, reflecting the
characters’ psychological states. The mud
• The Man and the Wife in the city (40mins) the Man and the Woman from the City wade
though is a metaphor for their relationship.
Editing
• Murnau employs long takes throughout
1
A Level Film Studies - Focus Film Factsheet
and would often hold a shot longer than CORE STUDY AREAS 3 - STARTING
is usual in Hollywood film, giving the POINTS – Contexts
film a lyrical and poetic quality.
Technological
• The film’s opening montage employs rapid
• Murnau uses every technical device
editing to give a graphic representation
available to filmmakers at that time. The
of the summer holidays in the city.
film exemplifies the late silent period, where
• The film’s most famous scene, where the
filmmaking had reached its artistic peak.
Man and Wife walk through the city, not
noticing the traffic, uses a dissolve shot to Institutional
merge the city and the country together. • Sunrise was Fox’s most expensive silent
film, intended as a ‘prestige picture’ for Fox
Sound
to demonstrate that they were purveyors
• Although Sunrise is a silent film, it was
of high cinematic art, as well as mass-
synchronised with a musical score.
produced entertainment. German directors
• The sound of bells is used as a motif at various such as Murnau were viewed as artists by
points – bells sound as the Man decides to Hollywood studios and Fox gave Murnau
spare his wife. Later, bells are heard again complete freedom and control on Sunrise.
and the Man and the Wife emerge from the
• Although Sunrise earned three academy awards,
church. Here, bells signal the Man’s change as
including the Oscar for Best Picture, the film
he repents and renews his love for his wife.
failed to recoup costs at the Box Office.
CORE STUDY AREAS 2 - STARTING
SPECIALIST STUDY AREA - DEBATES:
POINTS - Meaning & Response
REALISM VS EXPRESSIONISM
Representations - STARTING POINTS
• The Woman from the City represents the • Sunrise calls into question Bazin’s notion that
‘flapper’ figure. Flappers were women in the realist devices such as long takes and deep-focus
1920s who enjoyed a new-found freedom and are opposed to expressionism. Murnau employs
American jazz music. They rejected Victorian expressionist and realist aesthetics. He utilises
modes of dress, favouring short bobbed hair both montage and deep-focus and long takes.
and short shirts. Here, the flapper is represented • The subjective camera serves to
as a threat to the stability of marriage. merge fantasy and reality.
• The characters are universal types, hence
their titles ̶ the Man, the Wife, etc.
• The city is represented as a place of
decadence and fascination. The film does
not indicate specific locations ̶ it seems to
merge the European and American city.
Aesthetics (i.e. the ‘look and feel’
of the film including visual style,
influences, auteur, motifs)
• Murnau uses long, fluid camera movements.
He stated, ‘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.
