F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) is often, and deservedly, recognized as the supreme achievement of the silent era cinema—and of all the eras that followed. For nearly one hundred years, critics, historians, scholars, and film lovers have recognized its artistry, emotion, and technical brilliance. The film’s excellence was recognized for Unique and Artistic Production at the first Academy Award ceremony, and the latest BFI Sight and Sound poll ranks Sunrise as #11 on its list of Greatest Films of All Time.
The great pioneer of German Expressionism (Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror [1922], The Last Laugh [1924], Faust [1926]), Murnau came to Hollywood in 1927 where William Fox provided budgetary and artistic carte blanche to create a cinematic masterpiece. Working with master cinematographers Charles Rosher and Karl Struss, Murnau’s fluid tracking shots, superimpositions, and symbolic use of light helped redefine what film language could accomplish, achieving a level of visual storytelling that required no dialogue to communicate its eternal themes of guilt, forgiveness, and renewal. With Sunrise’s centenary nearing on the horizon, what better time to celebrate Murnau’s masterpiece with a renewal of its own.
SFFP’s Sunrise Project is a fully realized endeavor to definitively restore all relevant motion picture materials related to F.W. Murnau’s masterpiece Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. The project centerpiece is a complete 4K restoration of the iconic Movietone version that was released in America. The best surviving elements were ultimately identified at the British Film Institute National Archive, The Museum of Modern Art, and Cinémathèque royale de Belgique. Sources were scanned at 4K resolution and carefully compared to create the master edit. The combined sources were digitally restored by SFFP while the BFI restored the Movietone soundtrack. Two reels of a 1927 35mm nitrate print belonging to the George Eastman Museum—the only two reels from the original release that are known to survive—were used as reference to perfectly restore Murnau’s play of light, dark, and shadow.
A second restoration is underway based on a unique print of a localized version of Sunrise released in Czechoslovakia. Based on the export negative, this 35mm print comprises alternate takes of every shot included in the American release, offering special insight into the film’s production. This restoration is being carried out in collaboration with Národní filmový archiv, Prague, the National Film Archive of the Czech Republic. A third restoration is underway based on another unique print—a 35mm nitrate print belonging to the Eye Filmmuseum and created from the silent versions of the domestic American negative, localized for exhibition in the Netherlands with Dutch titles.
The American release of Sunrise included two versions: a silent version with a full-aperture 4:3 aspect ratio and a Movietone sound version with a 1.19:1 aspect ratio. The Movietone sound-on-film process required space for the optical soundtrack, giving the picture a nearly square format. While no copies of the original American silent version have survived, the prints from Národní filmový archiv, Prague and Eye Filmmuseum offer a window onto primary, uncropped shots as Murnau and cinematographer Charles Rosher originally framed them.
The Sunrise Project extends even beyond 4K restoration of three full versions of the film. The original trailer as well as a reel of outtakes are in process, both in collaboration with the Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center.
