A few years after his world-famous Nosferatu (1922), German Expressionist director F.W. Murnau made his first film in Hollywood. SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS (1927) won the very first Academy Award ever presented and is the Classic of the month for December.
SUNRISE is a story about both losing and rediscovering love. When a farmer falls in love with a woman from the city, he considers leaving his family. He is even willing to murder his wife in order to run away with his mistress. But his plan takes an unexpected turn. What follows is a journey through nature and city alike, with the goal of restoring his faith in love.
For this Expressionist masterpiece, Murnau pulled out all the stops—with the help of Hollywood’s checkbook. The extravagantly constructed sets and innovative filmmaking techniques are just as impressive nearly a century later. SUNRISE is the defining final flourish of the silent-film era. That’s how “classic” this Classic truly is.