Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

FW Murnau’s visually striking silent classic, about a marriage turned toxic by temptation.

  • Director

    FW Murnau

  • With

    Janet Gaynor, George O’Brien, Margaret Livingston

  • USA 1927. 95min

  • Digital

  • Certificate

    U

  • With Hugo Riesenfeld score

FW Murnau’s tale of a rural couple’s marriage turning murderously toxic after the husband yields to the temptations or a vamp is fable-like in its stark polarities and traditional symbolism. The meticulous play with darkness and light, movement and space imbues the proceedings with a dreamlike atmosphere of constantly shifting emotions, feverish anxiety and a hoped-for restoration of trust.