Sunrise Review
Appearing at the dawn of the talkies, F.W. Murnau's first American film represented Hollywood silent artistry at its peak. Murnau's graceful moving camera, expressive lighting, and superimpositions lyrically evoke the inner passion, pain, and romanticism driving the love triangle among a simple country couple and a vampish city woman. Though the city sequences play up too many country bumpkin-isms, the amusement park and streetscapes remain a marvel of set design, and the post-synchronized music and effects soundtrack eloquently took the place of speech. A prestige production for Fox Studio crafted by transplanted German personnel, including Murnau, scenarist Carl_Mayer, and cinematographers Charles_Rosher and Karl_Struss, Sunrise was more a succès d'estime than a box-office hit, and it won several of the newly instituted Academy Awards, with new star Janet_Gaynor taking Best Actress for Sunrise, Street_Angel, and Seventh_Heaven, Rosher and Struss winning Cinematography, and the film receiving Best Artistic Quality of Production (a second Best Picture category dropped the following year). Critically revered for its exquisite technique, Sunrise's artistic impact can be seen most notably in Citizen_Kane (1941). Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
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