Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Awesome Movie

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

. . . for starting the fad of having troves of life-saving tomes in nearly every American burg and hamlet. SUNRISE, a far more important and watchable film than WINGS--its fellow first-ever "Best Picture" Oscar winner--clocks in at about half of that bloated fiasco's running time. SUNRISE is set in a fishing village which lacks a library and access to such cautionary tales as novelist Theodore Dreiser's AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY. This leaves unread innocents such as the first-ever "Best Actress" Oscar winner in SUNRISE totally at the mercy of vixens "in the know" with access to big city libraries and Dreiser. One such deplorable harlot nearly succeeds in talking a naïve farm boy into committing AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY-style murder. The spotlight shown by SUNRISE upon these dangers posed by a lack of libraries inspired philanthropist Dale Carnegie to begin his nation-wide crowd-funding drive which placed "Carnegie Libraries" in hundreds of often rural locales across the USA (many of which are STILL open for business). Carnegie's library campaign--prompted by his favorite flick, SUNRISE--was such a success that it inspired his best-seller self-help book, HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE.

The camera movement in this film was surprisingly very complex, as well as the set design. There was a scene in the beginning of the film where the room looked very lopsided, like a silly house in an amusement park. I actually, thought that was a very artistic choice. Also, there was a tracking shot right after that scene which starts off super wide then becomes almost medium with little to no camera movements at all. For a silent film, I thought that was very impressive. Aside from the cinematography, the story was also very interesting and something that I would have never thought to make a movie about. The issue of infidelity but having that flipped so that the man falls more in love with his wife and so decides to not to cheat I thought made a really good statement.

Director F.W. Murnau made an outstanding film in 'Sunrise', which is an emotional drama and real visual treat. The story of temptation is simple and stripped down to the point of not even having character names for the principals (The Man, The Wife, and The Woman From the City), but the theme is timeless, and Murnau wastes no time getting to the tension. The simplicity may bother some, but I liked how tight the storytelling was. We really don't know which way the story is going to go, and at different times find ourselves horrified, touched, and even tickled during moments of levity. Janet Gaynor delivers a strong performance, and demonstrated real range to earn the first ever Oscar for best actress. She is very cute in the scenes where she's playful, such as when she dances with her husband. George O'Brien and Margaret Livingston are solid too, but what makes the film truly special is how far ahead of its time it was in its direction. Murnau uses overlays, imagined sequences, interesting camera angles, and flat-out beautiful cinematography from Charles Rosher and Karl Struss, and there are brilliant shots in the moonlight, on the water, and in the city. Poignant and artistic, this is one not to miss.

Sunrise wrestles with themes of morality, love and redemption. For a 1920s movie, the quality of the cinematography is impressive, with the light of sunrise illuminating the screen at the film's end while cameras even move to follow the action of characters from time to time. The film also provides quality shot to shot transitions, with city landscapes and elements of a fun fair fading in and out of focus. It's no question that Gaynor and O'Brien both perform miraculously, but the evolution of their marriage over the course of the film is a spectacle to behold. The film's greatest irony lies in the boat journeys taken by the couple to and from the nearby city. Initially, the man's love for another woman provokes a failed attempt at drowning his wife which foreshadows her fall off the boat on their return journey in the storm. Though he initially ponders sacrificing his wife for his mistress, the man experiences genuine regret and despair when he thinks he's lost her. Sunrise is an admirable look into both the fortitude of marriage and the challenges that it constantly brings about.