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 40th
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.
