Posted by
Townhall Movie Girl on Friday, December 12, 2008 6:01:50 PM
I was just over on
Dirty Harry's Place a little while ago and was actually smiling my head off when I realized that he was commenting and posting a review on the ninth of December release of a massive box set entitled
Murnau, Borzage and Fox Box Set. It's a massive collection of at least twelve DVD's and on Amazon running about $179.00, a deal when you look at the retail price.
Now some of you may be asking what the heck is a Murnau, a Borzage and a Fox, let alone a box set. Well *bg* a Borzage is a Frank Borzage, one of the movie industry's early directors and the man who brought us such movies as Janet Gaynor's
Seventh Heaven. A Fox is William Fox, the name of the founder of the studio that later became known as Twentieth Century Fox, and while not as well know as say Louis B. Mayer, Samuel Goldwyn or the Warner Brothers, he was still influential (although that influence unfortunately met with tragedy). And a Murnau is
F.W. Murnau...Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (a name that now graces a movie restoration company in Europe), a German director who gave the world
Nosferatu,
Faust and
The Last Laugh, and like so many Europeans before and since -- Von Stroheim, Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock -- he came to America, bringing imagination, a brilliant eye, a passion for film, and a talent and vision Hollywood might have often seen, but perhaps was unable to imitate or capture. (I will set aside until another time my sadness at the destruction of the epic
Greed.).
And he gave us Sunrise. Sunrise is best known as being the only motion picture to win the Motion Picture Academy's Oscar for Unique and Artistic Production, and having it tie with Wings as best picture.
I've seen Wings. I really like Wings. I recommend Wings.
I love and live Sunrise. So if there is ever an occasion for me to find someone else that loves it as much as I, I can't help but smile and nod and say 'You're absolutely right!' That was how I felt when I saw Dirty Harry's comments.
I posted my comments there...and I'm reposting them here, only because I don't feel that I can capture for a second time the off-the-cuff remarks I made upon reading what he wrote. All I can say is that everything he said about
Sunrise is not an exaggeration. It is honestly something you have to see for yourself. But here's what I posted, and I'm hoping that the link I posted above will trackback to his full review.
I still remember the first time I saw 'Sunrise', and it was in the days before such things as Netflix came along to satisfy this movie buff's passion for silent movies. I lucked out and found a VHS copy at a local video store that specializes in silents, foreign flicks and other unusual movies. In fact, they got so used to my tastes in films that they would offer recommendations each time I came in ('If you liked such and such, how about "Dr. Mabuse"?' Or 'I know how much you loved "Rashomon..."...') One day they asked me if I was familiar with 'Sunrise.' I knew Murnau -- had seen his magnificent 'Faust' and of course 'Nosferatu' and the clerk assured me that once I saw 'Sunrise' everything I loved about movies would be changed forever.
He was right. I literally ate up every camera movie, each bit of lighting, the way Murnau wove a story; was so caught up in the story of The Man and His Wife that I watched it a second time when I was done...and then regrettably returned it to the video store. The only other silent movie that affected me in such a powerful manner was Von Stroheim's 'Greed,' which I saw shortly afterwards, a two hour version on VHS. And again I was stunned that moviemaking was ever, ever the way it was represented by 'Greed' and 'Sunrise.' But 'Sunrise' most of all.
A couple of Christmases ago, I opened a package and found a note -- dictated by my 'baby' sister -- and saying "this was on your Amazon wish list and I hope it's what I want. They say this version comes from South Korea, but it's the only thing I could find on Marketplace." It was 'Sunrise,' the Fox special edition released a few years ago on DVD; one of those deals where you get a movie for free or little or nothing if you buy 100 movies on their list. The packaging was out of South Korea, (my sister found the copy domestically, and they said it was from a supplier in SK but one of the Fox special releases), but the movie was pristine, and once again, I drank it all in the way I would a favorite wine, savoring every single moment as if the movie didn't belong to me and would have to be returned. I think there were times I honestly imagined I had seen it all those years before. Boy was I wrong.
And unlike some movies that affect you once or twice, and then you see it again some time later and wonder 'What the heck was I thinking?' thankfully it wasn't the same with 'Sunrise.' I had the same emotional slam to my mind and especially my soul. I think it is one of the most beautifully romantic movies ever put on film, and my one fear is that modern Hollywood will rediscover it and have some hack director hire a bunch of hack writers and hack actors, and destroy everything that made it what it was.
Sorry to have gone on so long, but thanks DH for bringing this to everyone's attention and for letting me write my own memories. I have already told a friend of mine that she MUST put this on her Netflix queue! (I hope she's listening LOL). I suppose if I had to list my all-time favorite, top 5 silent movies they would be pretty much in order:
1) Sunrise (F.W. Murnau)
2) Greed (Erich von Stroheim)
3) Metropolis (Fritz Lang)
4) City Lights (Charles Chaplin)
5) The Thief of Bagdad (with Douglas Fairbanks)
And there are others I love as well: Lon Chaney (Senior) in The Unknown and Laugh Clown Laugh; Chaplin's The Gold Rush; Griffith's Orphans of the Storm; the dashing Fairbanks in The Mark of Zorro; Cecil B. DeMille, showing us he could capably handle a drawing room sex comedy as well as he later would his Biblical epics. I've seen Garbo -- young and plump -- blossoming in the snows of Sweden as she graced the screen in Gosta Berling's Saga, before she was ever known in America. I watched American Louise Brooks (one of the loveliest actresses ever) leave the U.S. and find fame as Lulu in Pandora's Box. And I still think that Valentino -- dancing the tango in the powerful Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse; seducing Agnes Ayres in The Shiek; playing the arrogant bullfighter in Blood and Sand; lovingly wooing the great Gloria Swanson in Beyond the Rocks; giving what might be his greatest performance in Cobra -- is one of the handsomest, sexiest men to ever appear on a screen.
But I always come back to Sunrise. I guess that any time I look at many of today's movies - both from Hollywood and elsewhere -- and wonder why they are such a bloody mess, I like to think that once upon a time, there was a director named F.W. Murnau, and whereas his Nosferatu was a symphony of horror, Sunrise was his symphony of love lost and love redeemed.
If you can't afford the box set, it's at Netflix and Blockbuster Online, along with the other movies in the box set. One of these days I'll get around to seeing Seventh Heaven and perhaps a few of the others, especially the other work by Murnau. But when I finally go on vacation, I'm planning on renting this new edition of Sunrise, (although I still own that version that was my Christmas gift), knowing deep down it will again be one of those movie experiences that come around way too rarely. I hope that when you finally see it too, you will know what I mean. I don't think you'll ever regret it.
PS: Bring tissues.