A symphony of two humans… Sunrise (1927), SFFP Restoration Premier, Il Cinema Ritrovato #40

Sometimes you come into these events after a hectic period working and preparing, doing the things you won’t be doing for eight days of potential self-indulgence. Sometimes you get frazzled by the early morning starts and “flight discipline”, maybe you don’t like Ryan Air or, just maybe you get snagged for 90 minutes of passport control? But, as Uncle George said, Here Comes the Sun and, indeed, here came a Sunrise unlike any I’d ever seen before.

My history with FW Murnau’s film starts with home media – Eureka I think – but I didn’t see it on screen as I was waiting for live accompaniment and, as it’s part sound in common versions, which didn’t happen until Elizabeth Jane Baldrey played magical harp accompaniment in the Early Music Centre in York. It was perfect. A decade later and those excellent folk at the San Francisco Film Preserve – who are on some kind of incredible run at the moment – have restored the film from various sources* and it not only looks different, it is different featuring more sunrise than previous versions.

It was unveiled on the first night of the 40^th edition of Bologna’s Il Cinema Ritrovato and it was one of those times when even the beauty of the Piazza Maggiore faded into the background as you lost yourself in the magic of Murnau with this fable of human frailty and love, featuring extraordinary performances from Janet Gaynor and George O’Brien. George dwarfs Janet and Murnau uses this to his advantage getting the most from O’Brien’s impressive physicality – all awkward angles and shadowy purpose, with surprising tenderness to counterpoint the vein popping rage and passion you’d expect.

George. Images from San Francisco Film Preserve

Even with that wig – and it’s an important prop – Gaynor delicate emotional radiance is indeed Oscar worthy and without her the brutality of her husband’s betrayal and callous connivance would not be so hard felt by audiences over the last century – it is a timeless crime and reflects the guilt we all carry at some point (not drowning but ditching…). Part of the play is also that the audience shares in the husband’s desire to experience something new in the city, perhaps these two were a marriage made in a small town with little choice? Maybe they are holding each other back or, just maybe, they’re the perfect partnership poisoned by soulless desire – sexual and societal: the tram to nowhere?

But it was also Timothy Brock and his 80-piece orchestra – maybe more I stopped counting – who really blew the roof off (I know it’s an open square but you know…) with a truly powerful score that had so much quality of emotional phrasing, thematic shifts and unexpected tonality – rich dense power chords illustrating the looming dangers, the heart wrenching strings of passion and despair, a piano seemingly under assault at certain points and all of the smart stylistic references you could want.

This was richly satisfying music, and the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale ill Bologna were having a time of it – lost in their own music - all dressed in formal wear on a day when the city left many of us broiled and sautéed… and yet it was entwined with the narrative, waxing with the richest of silent cinematic emotionalism and wanning with ferocity, murderous intent and extreme peril. A drunken pig was chased though a dance hall by incongruous violins and Margaret Livingstone’s was the amplified vamp, her allure, never more clearly on show, swirling above the conflicted output of an orchestra under instructions to pull us in but show us no way out.

It felt like watching the film for the first time – it really did – and there’s no higher tribute to this combination of the restoration and the score, but what more could you ask, to see and feel this film again as something new and unpredictable. Lost in music, enjoying the silence. A perfect Bologna evening and a reported audience of seven thousand - live cinema in the hottest week of the year!

It was a day for women falling into water – is this a separate strand?** – as we had both festival poster girl Barbara Stanwyck and Gloria Swanson (the IT Girl of 2026 for many reasons: Queen Kelly!!)

The first was in frank Capra's Ladies of Leisure (1930) which features a powerhouse performance from Ritrovato poster girl Barbara Stanwyck who plays Kay Arnold who is living the life of [insert period code words for sex worker] when tiring of one yacht-based gentlemen’s event, rows to freedom only to meet an artist Jerry Strong (Ralph Graves) who gives her a lift. He resolves to paint her, for no other reason than to show the “Hope” he feels in her.

Initially it’s all about the work, and long hours of him asking her to gaze upwards at imagined stars – it’s only a ceiling she replies – but gradually she falls for his creative approach and, inevitably, her very presence is more than enough to upset the elevated circles in which he moves, his prudish parents and his trophy wife. There’s splendid support from Marie Provost as Kay’s best buddy and leisure lady but the jokes about her weight are hard to watch.

Tom and Gloria back in time

For Gloria it was not just her character, Mary, but everyone in the ship who crash into a lonely tropical island…after her pappa Lord Loam (Theodore Roberts) takes his family and servants on a cruise. Male and Female is an adaptation of JM Barrie’s stage play, The Admirable Crichton from 1902 and you suspect that the themes of class and entitlement examined by the play’s dislocation of the “natural order” were played down as DeMille went for his now familiar targets. This is exemplified by the re-titling – “now, why didn’t I think of that…” Barrie commented at the time.

Yacht-wrecked with no service operations to provide for them the clueless aristos have to rely on good old Irish ingenuity as head butler William Crichton (Thomas Meighan) emerges as the handiest man and the natural leader. His position in this new society draws the attention of Mary and the two share a bizarre fantasy of themselves in a mythical Byzantian dream in which Swanson famously got ready for her claws-up with an actual lion.

In both films, class plays a part, and love is not enough to bridge the gap… or so it seems. JM Barrie’s tale leaves things open by the admirable Crighton has certainly moved on to find himself in a country once called the United States of America.

All this on Day One… more to come as we plod the streets in search of fresh fruit, hot drinks and new celluloid excess… In The City!

 

 

* Restored in 4K in 2026 by San Francisco Film Preserve at BFI National Archive, Cinémathèque royale de Belgique, Cineric, Haghefilm and L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratories, from 35mm elements provided by BFI National Archive and MoMA – The Museum of Modern Art. Funding provided by Sunrise Foundation for Education and the Arts and San Francisco Film Preserve Preservation Partners

This version runs 94 minutes matching the original runtime of the 1927 Fox Movietone theatrical release but upping the quality in ways that demand rewatching!

 

**There were indeed many more films across the week featuring scenes of women falling in water with surely a missed opportunity not to include Asta Nielsen’s Hamlet although the actress takes a splash in the restored er fremde Vogel (1911) directed by Urban Gad.