While the technical achievement of Sunrise is widely praised, it’s the acting that's at the heart of this film and that makes it so touching. George O’Brien’s Man is a lumbering hulk in the early part of the film. Handsome as any male ever was in a movie, Man’s big, working man’s frame is torn between passion for the City Girl and love for his Wife and child. In character, O’Brien doesn’t show his inner conflict by beating on walls or throwing things, but he instead has a stoop in his back; walks with slow, heavy steps; covers his face with his big hands; or stares intently for long periods of time into the distance as we search his face for clues to what he’s thinking. Actions like this, in the performance of another actor, could well seem artificial, but Murnau has O’Brien hold each motion and expression while the camera moves in for close-ups or pulls back to an angle that reinforces what O’Brien is creating in his character. The Man in the first part of this film seems like one of the most miserable human beings to appear on film.
The Man’s transformation is equally convincing. After nearly murdering his Wife, the Man becomes profoundly penitent and solicitous, and it’s again O’Brien’s body that carries us with him. In trying to console the Wife on the streetcar, in the café and walking on the street, the Man continually reaches for her but stops himself, often holding his big, desperate hands mere inches from her. He starts a movement toward her and then reverses it as he is pulled between his desire for consolation and forgiveness and his understanding of how the Wife feels at the moment. O’Brien is so effective that we feel as relieved as he is when the Wife tentatively accepts a piece of cake, and we’re as disappointed as he when she changes her mind. Murnau trusts his actors enough to let them carry out their slow emotional development in front of the camera. When the couple eventually arrives at a reconciliation, we again see it in the Man’s body. Forgiven by the Wife, O’Brien’s Man moves with faster gestures and his face takes on more light with wider eyes that engage what’s happening around him. His posture becomes more erect, and he walks with a swagger, holding the little Janet Gaynor at his side. He still has a temper and, in keeping with his character, strong violence lies not far below his surface, but we also see humor and love in the Man at this point.
The emotions of Gaynor’s Wife play in a smaller range, but like O’Brien, Gaynor holds a scene and elicits our empathy. We can feel her thought process as we watch her. In our introduction, we sense the tired disappointment in her shoulders and listless slouch as she realizes the Man has headed out for a moonlight rendezvous, but it’s in her scenes on the boat that Gaynor truly shows the depth of her talent. After the man has taken the boat back to shore to return the dog, the camera rests on Gaynor waiting in the boat. There, we watch as her willed optimism at the Man’s change of heart battles a prudent caution that she clearly feels. During the tug between these two sides, we finally catch resolve in her eye, but the Man returns and she stays in the boat rather than flee. Gaynor gives a master class in silent acting in this short scene, and Murnau trusts her talent enough to let the scene play out. Shortly after, we see a similar play of emotion in Gaynor’s face when the Man makes eye contact with her in the boat, rises from his seat, and approaches her. In her eyes and facial expression, we first see puzzlement, then disbelief at what she finally understands, and then terror. And all these emotions flit over her face in an unaffected, unexaggerated way that elicits our sympathy and fear; here, too, Murnau leaves his camera on Gaynor to let her carry the scene. The actor also does a tremendously convincing job portraying the Wife’s evolution from fear of and anger at the Man to the rekindling of their love, a huge leap for an actor to take in a few minutes of cinema. Gaynor begins this segment emotionally fragile, withdrawn and unable to look at the Man, but her body languages changes little by little in the church as the Man evinces his profound penance. By the end of the scene, the Wife is open, smiling and holding her husband again. And Gaynor not only executes this change, but she takes us along with her.
The effects in the film are justly praised both for inventiveness and for effectiveness in reinforcing the point of each scene. The director creates moods with mattes several times, like when the City Girl is describing the city to the Man while the sky is full of jazz bands and traffic. Later in the film, when the Man and his Wife are reconciled, they are framed in a matte of sunbeams. And in-camera superimpositions play an important role in Sunrise, too. The opening of the film is a tour-de-force series of partial dissolves talking about the banal topic of travel and vacation in dazzling cinema. One of Murnau’s most effective in-camera superimpositions has the Man sitting on his bed deciding what to do about his wife while a superimposition of the City Girl sits behind him holding his chest. She whispers in his ear while his head is turned away, an effective image of his internal process.
Murnau avails himself of other cinematic tools, too. His editing, for example, moves the film along a good clip. Editing builds the menace and then the confusion of the boat accident, and it emphasizes the fun at the amusement park when the couple dances and when the piglet scampers about. Murnau also creates the excitement of the city with a montage, and he cuts to enactments that reflect dialog, like the happy scene of the farming couple in a field which is cross-cut with the dialog of a couple of village women. There’s a similar moment when the fisherman tells the story of the Wife’s rescue. Another very effective cinematic tool is Murnau’s relative freeing of the camera. There are many tracking shots in Sunrise, among the most effective being the shot that follows the Man out to the marsh before it becomes a point of view moment as the camera brushes aside the reeds. Murnau also puts the camera on the street car as the Man and Wife go into the city; the ongoing dislocation out the front window visually echoes the emotional stress between the characters. There are also many pans and tilts in the film. When the vacation boat arrives at the village, the camera angles up to see the town before turning back down to watch the docking, and when the couple exits the bar at the amusement park, a long pan follows them out until they pass behind a fountain and picks them up again as they pass it. Sunrise has a very active, engaging camera.
Murnau had all the elements of a classic in Sunrise, and he put them together to create one. Based on masterful acting, audacious direction and technical innovation, Sunrise still moves people today. Although films like this one mark the end of silent cinema, they remain a testimony to the power of that art form and give an intimation of where it might've gone.
