awkwardly intrudes into its reality- Jevel); the floating, circling cupids seen ‘when the couple are under the influence ff wine. To defend these as the sorts of {mages a simple peasant might conjure up strikes meas merely patronizing, and theeffects achieved are toofalse-naive to ‘work on a deeper level If sunuise is, through its knotting t {gether of affinities with other art forms, thesis can the most synthetic of all films, the syn ‘also be described in terms ‘more specifically cinematic: the marriage fof Melies anc Lumivre. One can estab Tish within the film the opposite poles of 2 the cinema’s aesthetic beginnings: the vision of the city conjured up by the City 5, Woman out of the marshes, a moment of the church pure Mélies magic, totally fabricated; the hot, crucial to the film’s development showing the couple's emergence from “remarried,” where the Coringtone the Wo Gverea oem camera is placed, completely static, be- fore a simply staged action itis then al lowed simply to record. Interestingly the two moments are not only stylistic but thematic opposites, marking respec tively the eruption of untrammeled libido and its subjugation through the lorder of marriage, But elsewhere in the film Melies artifice and Lumiere simple ity unite. In likening Murnau’s at to the painter's {twas not only the superimpositions I was thinking of; the Expressionist influence pervades the style ofthe movie in subtler form. Filtered throught Murnau'ssensibil ity, Expressionism becomeslessa matter of the distortion of reality than of selection and emphasis, a process admirably suited te the concern of myth with essentials Several shots in the film immediately suggest paintings, most obviously the gil life” of wooden bowls and bread on Il the able that epitomizes fous the simple. ty, totally devoid of uy yt sturdy nd Sstaiing, ofthe couple's domestic ein Contrast tthe ext allrements of the Giy Woman who iat the momenta the gate, whiling for the man the second Roneymoon image of the boat sali home by moonlight, a composition Wack backgrounel, white sal, path of rmoomight onthe water—that evokes the implied color blocks (hough not the tamorous colors) of the Bruck group Out of which Expressionism developed nd the unforgetiably beat shots of boats fd Lnters roving acon the dak tera the mom and te ville serch for theswie afer thestorm, whichinthe usect patterns of Hight and reflected light Eoggestean Impresionism offctby then tense empotional-dramati content of the “Againand again inthe film, expecially yythe performances of the two principals (George O'Bien and Janet Caynon)- ne notes how a particularly expressive ges: ture, pose, or belly movement i aught emphasized, and framed very much ss 4 painter would seck to cpturet on canvas the wife standing beside the table withthe bowl of soup, alter her husband has soem {tt jin the seeman the baby touching thevwe's ght noted ian che weeps int the pillow; the wife nthe early oe ing leaning salitously over her husband ashelies siep, fully dressed, on the bed. Most ‘sting of ll i the scene in the boat—the attempted murder. One's first ‘mental images in recalling the scene will probably be of two posed, almost static Figures: the slender and fragile wife, filmed froma high angle that intensifies our sense ot her smallness and vulnerability, cower ing back until one fears she will topple backwards from the boat, holding out her clasped hands to pray for mercy, leaving her precariously bent-back body wholly without support and, in direct opposition, the low-angle shots of the husband that ‘emphasize his bulk, his hunched yetloom: ing form, the terrible rigidity of a body forced by the will into an action felt as ‘monstrous by the man himself, in some deep emotional center beneath the sensi bility he has deliberately numbed, For the sequences culminating in the attempted murder, Murnau had George O'Brien's shoes weighted with twenty peunds of lead, a device essentally Expressionist in inspiration. It confers on the character that duality of being at once oppressor and vi: tim. The shambling heaviness of his movements makes him appear a monster {almost in the literal, horror-flm sense), 12 MAY-JUNE 1976, a Yet also suggests the unnatural effort of Will by which he is suppressing his own Finer feclings. But any sense we may have of Murnau as a dramatic portrait painter is Ver quickly qualified by our Sense of move. enti his ins is thisthat suggests a fines with music afnaies Mure him selfacknoveedges inthe subtitles of eer lino hls met ao thet onrm Sie Symphonie da Grouens” aed suwmtse "A Song Two Humans") tou is mental images ofthe cone ofthe atompte! mr derare of state portits,these dows m= medately plac themselves ina context of Sirtfiart movement. Even the posed at- fitade of the cowering wile is Conner. pointed by the background of shimmer. ing, sunld water The static moment of cufrntation i te boat, give sch fe | tensi ty by the portrat.ike poses, becomes the still point of decision in a progress clearly more than physical: the deliberate, inexorable movement ofthe boat from the shore (interrupted by the incident of the dog's attempt to follow) as the man rows his wife out to murder her; the frantic, panic-stricken struggle to row to shore, after he has relinguished the attempt but revealed the intention, the intense drive expressed in the repeated shots of the prow cleaving the water; his pursuit of her 8 she fles in terror across meadow and rocks to the tramlines; the celebrated tram-journey itselt This feeling for the expressive force of movement is perhaps the essence of Mur: nau's art, It was already powerfully pres- lent in NOSFERATU, mest fotably in the in tercut journeys by land and sea (which startlingly anticipate, and excel in emo. tional intensity and suggestive signifi: cance, Hitcheack’s intercutting of actions: in the build-up to the imax of srRaNCERS Of a Tmatn), but alsoin the overal effect of the film as a dynamic progress from the flowers-and-kitten scene ofthe opening to ‘Nina‘s death at the end. Physical move- ‘ment in Mumau's films is seldom merely @ incidental, or merely functional tothe plot tis the suertnee sonnitoniaten of all tat < 2 argon teneath he sta he ‘tives pt soul and psyche. The quality Tam ingicating can be clearly defined by con tasting ih tthe essen eter § the fara eqquences of stsmise, where ¢ there isa continual bustle of incidental $ movement—nilling coves, the panic 4 Surrounding the escaped pigs the dancing —but litle sense of progress. Tot ctevelop my evusieal analogy ome might? Sayrthatin he outer movements OFSUNRISE ; there i continual modulation, whereas & one fels the fun fir sequence, fr alts rapid motion, tobe rooted in one Key. 2 "with this dynamic movement goes a feolingforspaceand distance that noes: tor has surpassed, Counterpointing the. forward impulse is the use of enclosure (Cottage, boat, tam, café) an oppressive feeling of separateness within narrowly circunseribed bounds. Throughout these scenes husbund and wife scarcely touch tach other. The distance between them in the bont—physialy so smal, spintully 0 vast withthe husband doggedly will; ing himselt on, refusing tose his wife— becomes the decisive factor in the scene's visual effect. When he stands to il her, ands fore to move toward her and ok + at her, the low placing ofthe camera gives @ reat emphasis to his hands his sudden © este of desperately hiding his face nis forearms, she all enormity of what hei doing breaks pon him, hos maximum visual fore, Werlso become very aware of his wedding ring (wherens the wife's is seldom visible: we are only made con scious ofits existence once think, when theman who makes advances toherin the barber's shop glances down at her hands, pautly hidden by the Powers she is hol ing, to sce if she is wearing one), Ater- srards, he can't touch his wie with the hands tha were going to kil her She rishes past hit to escape fom the beat and later flee fom the tram, and he is powerless to use bis hands to top her. Only when hesaves her ife-—snatching hetack fromin frontofa carasshe dashes aeross the city street—can he put his hands on her again. Inthe trolley, there's the same sense of separateness-within- enclosure as nthe Bost, but intensified by the couple's extreme physical proximity The roles are now reversed tthe Muse tnd who pends alent for contact, the wife who holds herselfback. The tightness Ot the compositions, man bowed, wife “ringing imprisoned within the endosing Structure of the tam, makes their inability totouch appear unbearable.‘The uses to which Murnau puts open are even more remarkable. The ou weachievement is perhaps the ending FE, bu shall ite fo exams fom Sunrise, one where Murnau deliberately ermines our sense of spatial lao Sesense of real distance, a Méies sh 2 Lumiere shot. The extraordinary ching shot that accompanies the marie talk ott tothe marshes to meet the City onan isa dassi instance of the use of fethrique for expressive purposes. At the Paging of the shot the man is about to cams. small bridge with a wooden hart, ta the camera behind him, ahead als nd dark, and the moon is atthe top [Eel the image, The camera follows the n across the bridge and the moon dis Zppeas from the frame; with it goes Our abfty to Keep our beatings with any cer tiny. The camera fellows the man's com. cated movements as he passes By an n= Brrening ee and dims over ¢ fence then he leaves the frame, left, and the tamera moves on forward toward some feng. Up (o this point, although the shot is never strictly subjective the movement of the camera has been closely associated wath the windings and turnings of the than, and we tend to assume that itis novs preceding him through the bushes, a the Tage parts toreveal the City Woman Be- AF hind her, rather disturbingly isthe moon "we can't doubt the evidence of our eyes, bat we havea vague sense that show be farther to the ltt, outside the frame. We © alsoexpect the man toomengeat once fom proximately where thecamera emerged {however after lapse of time suffent to & enablcher tocheck her appearance biel £ the Woman tums to wercome him let of } frame, and he at last reappeats from that ditection £ "Infact, the evidence of our eyes is false, ® ur sense of direction less at fault than we havebeen deceived intobelleving, Accord: ing to Lote Eisner, Murnau had two Gal moons constructed in the studio for this one shot. We are not of course cone scious of any such device while experienc- & ing the scene, but everything in the shots devoted to subtly undermining our spatial ‘artaines ls eect is a perfect balancing & of objective and subjective. Through the X Cameraceye we taioh the man until he © Jeaves the frame and when Ke reappeais, and when we think the shot has Become Subjective we are proved mistaken, whith inna immediately detaching effect. On the other hand ot increasitig physteal disorientation during the shot communi tates very directly the spiritual disorienta- & tion of the man like ws, he has lost his sense of direction. Significantly the shot moves us, with him, further and further into the marshes. There isa danger, in analyzing the mechanism behind the shot insuch deta, of making t sound theory cal, butone certaily doesh el this whi watching the Sm. tia perfect example of pend essentially on context rather than fechnique Building up toit ste cml tive movement of the marriage ‘claons ship so far partclarly the wks rela. tion of what the husband was going todo, and the man’sanswering restore the enormity ofthe attempt murder, When he puts his hands to is ac in the bo both to lo ut the sight of her cowering ay From him and to hide is own sees shome,itisasif nets elensed oma spel The intensity of thee reactions reveals how depiy the coupe ove cater the