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SUNRISE C.A. Lejeune 1928 The Year in Retrospect P.S. Harrison on public reaction to the film in 1927. And more(External Link) Music and Motion Pictures. By the film's composer, Hugo Riesenfeld (External Link) |
"Sunrise is a forerunner of a new type of picture play in which thought is expressed pictorially instead of by titles." Karl Struss, co-director of photography, 1927 Overview Had Karl Struss substituted the word 'chatter' for 'titles' he may have been a more successful prophet. In 1927 the battle that cinematographers were about to embark on was not just for the increasing sophistication of the moving image to convey a coherent narrative, it was against the spoken word's potential dilution of the visual possibilities that the best of silent film promised. The desire to use film to express ideas and emotions in a visual way is the one constant that unites thinking filmmakers since the beginning of the artform. There has always been this tension between the pictorial on one hand, and on the other, every other device, every other piece of baggage brought to the form from elsewhere. Murnau once said "Our whole effort must be bent toward ridding motion pictures of all that does not belong to them, of all that is unnecessary and trivial and drawn from other sources - all the tricks, gags, "business" not of the cinema, but of the stage and the written book. That is what has been accomplished when certain films reached the level of great art. That is what I tried to do in "The Last Laugh." We must try for more and more simplicity and devotion to pure motion picture technique and material." Sunrise is one of the most photographically spectacular and liberating achievements in cinema history. The dynamic sweep with which Murnau's camera is able to chart the characters' interior, emotional journey and document it visually is regarded by many as a distinct high point of silent filmmaking art. Charles Rosher & Karl Struss Charles Rosher studied photography in the London Polytechnic and became an established newsreel cameraman before relocating to the United States in 1909. He bought his first movie camera and went to work for the Horsley brothers in their New York studios. When the Horsleys moved east in 1911 Rosher went with them, becoming Hollywood's first full time cameraman. He photographed legendary footage of the Villa revolution in Mexico in 1913. Between 1917 and 1929 he was the cameraman of choice for Mary Pickford, the biggest female star of the period. This period for Rosher saw him develop and refine some influential photographic techniques including ABC Pyro, a process that gives the photographer more control over images exposed in difficult conditions. In 1918 he co-founded the ASC, the American Society of Cinematographers. He received two Oscars, for Sunrise in 1928 and for his Technicolor photography on The Yearling in 1946. Karl Struss began working in still photography in New York in 1916. He became a master of autochrome colour photography and contributed widely to the vanguard of photographic thought and writing. His curiosity led him to the area of cinematography, he left New York for the west coast in 1919. He was hired by Jesse Lasky, who was attracted by Struss' clearly Rembrandt influenced style, to take publicity stills, not the most stimulating challenge but his shots of some of the silent era's greatest names came to be admired by Cecil B DeMille who took Struss on to assist with the making of For Better, For Worse (1919). Their partnership continued with Male and Female, Forbidden Fruit, Poisoned Paradise and Ben Hur. His reputation grew to the extent that at the birth of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Louis B.Mayer asked him to represent his craft, and for good measure, that body awarded him their first cinematography 'Oscar' for his work on Sunrise. He moved to United Artists in 1927, working with the studio's triumvirate of Griffith, Chaplin and Pickford Welles.on Battle of the Sexes, Drums of Love, The Great Dictator, Limelight and Coquette. He retired in 1970 after a career which also saw him lens Journey Into Fear for Orson Welles. Panchromatic Negative Stock Panchromatic negative film, developed for colour photography but which added considerable light sensitivity in black and white, was introduced in the early 1920s and became standard in 1927, with an infrared version added in 1928. Panchromatic film's light sensitive properties let cinematographers move away from the powerful carbon arc floodlamps previously used and replace them with incandescent tungsten bulbs, which gave off a softer, more nondirectional light. It also made possible, as in Sunrise, day for night effects - shooting in sunlight scenes that appear on screen as if photographed at night. (Robert Sklar, Film:An International History of the Medium) Camera Movement FW Murnau "They say that I have a passion for 'camera angles.' But I do not take trick scenes from unusual positions just to get startling effects. To me the camera represents the eye of the person, through whose mind one is watching the events on the screen. It must follow characters at times into difficult places, as it crashed through the reeds and pools in Sunrise at the heels of the Boy, rushing to keep his tryst with the Woman of the City. It must whirl and peep and move as swiftly as thought itself, when it is necessary to exaggerate for the audience the idea or emotion that is uppermost in the mind of the character. I think the films of the future will use more and more of these 'camera angles,' or as I prefer to call them these 'dramatic angles.' They help to photograph thought. "One way of eliminating titles is by showing two antagonistic thoughts as parallels; for example, by wishing to convey the wealth of a certain person as being extreme, I would show alongside of him a greatly impoverished character. Symbolism would obviate titles. I like the reality of things, but not without fantasy; they must dovetail. " |