Reshuffling of lifetime topten movielist: Murnau's "Sunrise"

Cafe Society
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I finally procured a DVD of FWMurnau’s Sunrise.* Though I was stunned by it the first time I saw it, seeing it again was like coming home, and I have to figure out what movie to drop from my lifetime top ten to accommodate it.

I’ve never etched my top ten in stone; there are about 20 titles that migrate in and out of it, depending. But there are a few that are always at the top. So here goes.
[ul]The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)
The Crowd (King Vidor, 1928)
Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1929)
Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)
Solyaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)
Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)
Europa 51 (Roberto Rossellini, 1951)
Sullivan’s Travels (Preston Sturges, 1941)
Badlands (Terence Malick, 1973)
I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943)
[/ul]In vaguely descending order; at least, the ones at the top tend to remain at the top.

Here are some other titles that bubble up through this list from time to time:
[ul]Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1953)
Blowup (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966)
The General (Buster Keaton, 1927)
Sylvia Scarlet (George Cukor, 1935)
All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930)
Raising Arizona (The Coen Brothers, 1987)
Scarlet Empress (Josef von Sternberg, 1934)
To Sleep with Anger (Charles Burnett, 1990)
Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)
Track of the Cat (William Wellman, 1954)
Monkey Business (Howard Hawks, 1952)
Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993)
Devil in a Blue Dress (Carl Franklin, 1995)
The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)
Dancer in the Dark (Lars Von Trier, 2000)
Showgirls (Paul Verhoeven, 1995)
Oleanna (David Mamet, 1994)
[/ul]. . . plus the dozen or so that popped in and out of my mind while I was formulating this post (*Trouble in Paradise, The Naked Spur, Edward Scissorhands, Grand Illusion, Dawn of the Dead, Foolish Wives, Princess Mononoke, * yadda yadda yadda).

*Google it; not a whole lot of info at imdb.

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All that previewing and I left off the final paragraph, in which I invite others to discuss my list, or to offer their own.

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Personally I consider Sunrise overrated. I thought the middle was pure gold but the first and last section were little more than crude melodrama. The mistress in particular could hardly be more one-dimensional.

The ending was also unsatisfying

I think the film would have been a lot better if either one of the characters had died. It would have been cruelly ironic either way . As it was you just had a conventinal Hollywood happy ending

My top ten which is also always in flux:
The Third Man
Princess Mononoke
Brazil
Gosford Park
Annie Hall
A Man for All Seasons
Grave of the Fireflies
Seven Samurai
Kind Hearts and Coronets
Casablanca

Other films include Godfather 1 and 2 , The Apartment, His Girl Friday, Sweet Smell of Success, LA Confidential, High and Low, Dr Zhivago.

After I see the last instalment I expect LOTR will be somewhere in or near my top ten.

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I think the Woman From The City’s shallowness was intentional and appropriate. And the emotional veracity, for me, transcends the melodrama and justifies the ending. To divide the film into thirds, it seems to me, is to focus on it as an artifact. Though it’s certainly nearly peerless as a piece of cinematic art–especially, as you say, the middle bits–it’s the wholeness of the emotional arc that makes this movie for me.

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“To divide the film into thirds, it seems to me, is to focus on it as an artifact”
I think the film itself suggests the three-way division; I have seen few films with two such dramatic changes of mood.

As for the shallowness of the mistress the problem for me was that it was so laughably stereotypical that it undercut the mood of the scene where they hatch the plot. Audiences in 1929 probably took the scene at face value but today it seems unintentionally funny.

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“To divide the film into thirds, it seems to me, is to focus on it as an artifact”
I think the film itself suggests the three-way division; I have seen few films with two such dramatic changes of mood.

As for the shallowness of the mistress I found it so laughably stereotypical that it undercut the mood of the scene where they hatch the plot. Audiences in 1929 probably took the scene at face value but today it seems unintentionally funny.

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I love Sunrise: it’s right up there with Broken Blossoms as an atmospheric Art Film. The only quibbles are with Janet Gaynor’s fake wig and Mojo Jojo hat. I also check off Night of the Hunter on your Top Ten list. A must-see. Though the rest of your list just indicates we have slightly different tastes in films.

I don’t have a Top Ten list, but possibilities, off the top of my head and with no book-checking:

Dinner at Eight (1933)
Applause (1929)
Rain (1932)
Footlight Parade and/or Golddiggers of 1933 and/or 42nd Street (all 1933)
Marlene (1984)
The Best of Everything (1959)
It (1926)
Intolerance (1916)
Million Dollar Legs (1932)
Female Trouble (1974)
Enchanted April (1992)
(note: this is not my list of Best Films, it is my list of my favorites)

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Eve, I haven’t been able to track down Applause, but it’s near the top of my must-see list; ditto Rain. I enjoy Dinner at Eight, but it doesn’t linger for me.

And I have a feeling that I may have to reshuffle once I’m able to get all the way through Intolerance, but BoaN was such a horrifying experience for me that I’m dragging my feet getting back on that horse. I keep getting about 30 minutes into it, then having to go to the bathroom or something, and never get back to it. Someday soon I’ll sit myself down–with a chamber pot if necessary–and finish the damn thing.

I’ll look for some of your others that I haven’t seen; GD1933 and It were already on my list, but I’ve seend $1Legs or BoE recommended before; I’ll seek them out.

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Cyber, I love Brazil too; it’s probly in my top, say 50; most of the rest of yours register somewhere in my top hundred or so. The only film you mention that I don’t LOVE love is LAConfidential, though I love it a little bit.

As far as trifurcating Sunrise, of course, structurally I’m one hundred percent in agreement with you. My only point was that Sunrise is such a wonderful emotional experience for me that I don’t like (much) to approach it from a structural perspective; I’d rather just sigh contentedly.

Plus was George O’Brien a hunk or WHAT?

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I wouldn’t recommend One-Dollar Legs. I think that’s the one with Edna May Oliver . . .

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And Eve, I’d love to hear you on Johnny Guitar. (Oh, and yes, I must make a conscious decision to overlook Janet’s hair and millinery horrors each time I watch Sunrise. If I ever get shot in the head, I’d hope to be wearing something like that wig.)

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Har. No; Charles Laughton I think. Sorry. Missed the M.

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The parts of Sunrise that always bugged me were both set in the Big Bad City…the hideous “comic relief” section at the photographer’s parlor, and the horribly-photographed scene just after they’re rediscovered true love and walk across the heavily-trafficked avenue, oblivious to honking horns and careening trucks.

Small prices to pay for this brilliant flick, one of my alltime greatest Weepy Melodramas.

LOVE the “cat eyes” the mistress makes as the cart wheels her away at the end. And I LIKE the Gaynor wig.

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I have trouble getting my hands on a great deal of the silent titles… Kino is so expensive.

My list is something like:

Force Of Evil

The Lady From Shanghai

Vertigo

The Phantom Of The Opera (1925, of course)

Nosferatu

Det Sjunde Inseglet

Throne Of Blood

The Big Lebowski

My Man Godfrey

Gentleman Prefer Blondes.

Try as I might, Joan of Arc is elusive.

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Ilsa, dare I even ask which version of My Man Godfrey you chose? (just kidding…)

lissener, I don’t think that I was aware of how really good William Macy is until I saw Oleanna. (I will watch anything by Mamet.)

I’m going to follow your link to Blowup. I saw it when it came out. There was a lot of talk, a lot of controversy, a lot of Vanessa Redgrave (again, my first “exposure” to her). Then it disappeared. I want to know what became of it.

Anyone have opinions on Orlando? Carmen and Tango? (And what was the third one in that trilogy?)

(Submitted for your consideration by she who was born on the day that For Whom the Bell Tolls was released in theaters…)

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Zha Zha Gabor’s, of course! Bring on the empty horses!

I’ll add Pleasantville to my list. To Kill a Mockingbird mediocrity on the surface, but really subversive underneath. Allen and Macy deliver performances at once both over the top and understated.

Maybe Number Seventeen, Being There, Blackmail and Touch Of Evil too. And The Magnificent Ambersons. The Tenant.

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Who, him?

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No, him!

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18 movies that regularly crop up when I’m thinking about compiling a top ten favorites list:

Rear Window (1954)
Night of the Hunter, The (1955)
Lady Eve, The (1941)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
Written on the Wind (1956)
Sunrise (1927)
Something Wild (1986)
Goodfellas (1990)
Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, The (1944)
Notorious (1946)
Chinatown (1974)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Raising Arizona (1987)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Say Anything… (1989)

I wish there were more – namely, any – foreign films that I love, but while there are many I admire a great deal, they never leap to mind as all-time favorites. Of course, I have a lot more to see.

Paul Thomas Anderson called these “gearshift movies” in an interview in Sight & Sound a few years ago, and with that phrase pretty much encapsulated my favorite genre. I’m a fan of radical mood shifts when they’re handled smoothly, especially screwball noir. They’re tricky to handle well, though.

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I like PTA, too.