Title: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Year: 1927
Director: F.W. Murnau
Writers: Carl Mayer, Katherine Hilliker & H.H. Caldwell
Starring: George O’Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston
Music: Hugo Riesenfeld
Distinctions: Oscars for Best Picture (“Unique and Artistic Production”), Best Actress (Gaynor, for three films) and Best Cinematography; Oscar nomination for Best Art Direction; currently #176 on IMDb’s Top 250
Synopsis: a man plots to kill his wife, then re-falls in love with her
Length: 95 minutes
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), December 2008
Subjective Rating: 4/10 (Eh).
Objective Rating: 4/10 (gets points for story, dialog, cinematography and music) c. 2.2/4 (Okay).
Boring. The story has a sort of classical/folk-tale-ish shape, which I like. The acting isn’t bad for a dramatic silent film, but is bad by any reasonable standards. The characters are completely without depth or reasonable motivations.
Mister Comfypants 