Sunrise
d. F.W. Murnau, 1927
In my opinion the greatest of all silent films, F.W. Murnau's Sunrise a film of great beauty. Murnau came to Hollywood to make this film from his native Germany, where he had created such works as Nosferatu and The Last Laugh. Great as those early films are, Sunrise is easily his greatest achievement and a summary of everything there is to admire about the lost art of silent film. Starting of with a rather simple story of marital discord - Man betrays his wife, plans to kill her, backs out, must redeem himself - and turns it into expressionistic poetry. In its striking montages, Murnau foreshadows the work of directors like Jean Cocteau as well a masterpieces like Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (which may be the only film that approximates the wonderful feel of this movie). As beautiful as any film ever made, Sunrise (subtitled "A Song of Two Humans") is a landmark of cinema.
