Film Forum
209 W Houston St
212.727.8110
This event has passed.
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Sunrise
- When
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Apr 2, 2010 – Apr 8, 2010
Daily
- Where
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- Price
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$12
- Links
“Seeing Sunrise for the first time is, in appropriately poetic terms, like seeing a luminous aurora. Be ready: your head is apt to become a looping projector of Murnau's famously sublime images, which gather up the pathos of George O'brien's split between tempting city and tender country. Often included on all-time-best lists, it's best seen on the big screen, hung up there like the rapturous, expressionistic painting it is.”
Jason Jude Chan, Flavorpill
Film Forum says:
Subtitled A Song of Two Humans: the idyllic marriage of George O’Brien and Janet Gaynor is threatened when he falls for a cigarette-smoking, jazz-loving vamp from the city — so hard that he starts contemplating murdering his wife. F.W. Murnau and his screenwriter Carl Mayer were given an almost unlimited budget and artistic freedom for their first Hollywood picture, creating a nearly title-less visual poem. From the seduction scene in the misty, moonlit marshes, to the carnival-like trip to the city, to the hairraising storm on the lake, this is a work of photographic pyrotechnics, from cameras moving on rails set in the roof of the set, to the lights of the city shimmering on the waters of the lake at night, to pictorial evocation of sounds and cries, in the last gasp of the silent film. Under Murnau’s direction, Charles Rosher and Karl Struss won the very first Oscar for cinematography; while Janet Gaynor won Best Actress (for this and two other films); plus a never-repeated award for Unique and Artistic Production.
