Rationale for Study

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Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is considered to be one of the great achievements of American silent cinema. F. W. Murnau, the German director of Nosferatu and The Last Laugh, brings his expressionist visual style to Hollywood for the first time and in so doing, he tells an incredibly moving and visually rich story about a married couple rediscovering their affection for one another. Sunrise starts off within the dark thematic terrain Murnau was best known for, but in traversing through this darkness the film ultimately finds a restored faith in the good of people. Perhaps his greatest achievement, Sunrise exhibits Murnau’s stunning ability to express the range of human emotion through very few words.