DVD: “Murnau, Borzage and Fox,”
Posted by Dirty Harry on Thursday, December 11th, 2008
Murnau’s Sunrise
To the nerdy delight of we cinephiles, Twentieth Century-Fox is mining their past with exquisite DVD box-sets examining the early careers of the first filmmaking pioneers. Last year it was John Ford, but this year it’s Fox founder William Fox along with director’s F.W. Murnau and Frank Borzage.
A friend of mine, who may not want to be outed as such here, was gracious enough to send me some extra review discs he’d received and I’ve been in hog heaven ever since savoring them as time permits — actually, I have plenty of time but am dithering because I don’t want the experience to end.
It’s like using up wishes.
The opening disc is a brand new documentary, Murnau, Borzage and Fox, covering the careers of the three men which are so intertwined its likely we wouldn’t know one without the others. As is the case in too many Hollywood stories theirs is a story of much tragedy and ruin, but also great art. From Lou Lumenick’s review of the set:
Fox broke into the movie business with a Brooklyn nickelodeon in 1904 and 11 years later founded the Fox Film Corp., which quickly flourished with films from Western star Tom Mix and the exotic vamp Theda Bara, who had been born Theodosia Goodman in Cincinnati.
By the mid-1920s, Fox was pushing not only the Movietone sound-on-film system, but also a widescreen process called Grandeur.
He also imported one of Europe’s most influential directors, Germany’s F.W. Murnau - not just to make pictures, but also to teach Fox’s own directors, an already distinguished group that included John Ford, Raoul Walsh, Howard Hawks and Frank Borzage.
In the first year of the Oscars, Murnau won the first and only Oscar ever awarded for “artistic achievement,” for the visually dazzling melodrama “Sunrise” (1927). The first Best Actress award went to the movie’s star, Janet Gaynor, who was also cited for two other Fox films, the romantic dramas “7th Heaven” and “Street Angel,” both directed by Borzage, who was heavily influenced by Murnau’s work.
Gorgeous transfers of all three films are included in the deluxe $240 set, along with a documentary on the three men plus two books.
I just finished Borzage’s 7th Heaven which has at least a half-dozen scenes I played again and again, but the real knock-out thus far is an early Borzage talkie called Bad Girl (1931), which is so obscure Leonard Maltin doesn’t even list it in his authoritative Classic Movie Guide. I sure know I’d never heard of it, but the screenplay won the Oscar that year and the dialogue is some of the smartest you’ll ever come across. After a second helping of Bad Girl over the weekend, we’ll finally move on to Murnau with City Girl (1930), which I’ve never seen. But saving the best for last is a new transfer of Murnau’s Sunrise (1927), which I’ve seen many times but never on DVD.
From a purely photographic standpoint, the art of motion picture peaked with Sunrise. Nothing has ever topped this masterpiece in the area of pure visual poetry. If it weren’t for the great run of MGM musicals in the late forties and early fifties, I would say film itself peaked with Sunrise.
There have been about a dozen experiences in my life where, because of the film’s effect on me, the watching of the movie was as memorable as the movie itself. My first screening of Sunrise is one of those experiences. To put it in the plainest of language: I had no idea film could do that. There’s a shot of a character whose named only The Woman From The City, and from afar she’s willing The Man (George O’Brien) to murder his wife (Janet Gaynor). From that moment I watched Sunrise like a caveman might watch an automobile pass by. I simply had no idea such beauty and emotion was possible on film.
The set is pricey but it wouldn’t surprise me if TCM or The Fox Movie Channel decided to broadcast some of these to hype it. Last year TCM did exactly that with Ford at Fox. So keep your eyes open, try Netflix, but the good news is that cinematic glory and goodness still awaits your discovery.
Filed in Classic Films |
Johnny Ed's Babyon 11 Dec 2008 at 5:41 pm 1I always thought the three founders of the studio were named Twentieth, Century and Fox. Shows what I know.
For a silent film, Sunrise practically blares its emotions to the viewer. There are so few titleboards you forget its a silent film after a while because they aren’t necessary. Sunrise is up there with City Lights as the greatest of the silents.
Jake Was Hereon 11 Dec 2008 at 6:00 pm 2JEB: I had a similar problem when I was a kid. I would see the MGM logo and think, “What kind of a name is Metro?”
Morganon 11 Dec 2008 at 8:25 pm 320th Century Fox was the result of a merge. Darryl F. Zanuck had his own production company, 20th Century, which later merged with Fox in the 30’s and Zanuck was made the head of the newly named company.
Also, the logo for 20th Century Fox and the opening they have before the beginning of their movies originated with Zanuck’s company before the merge.
Bibion 11 Dec 2008 at 9:23 pm 4No exaggeration … “Sunrise” is one of the best movies ever made. Expressionism seems to have waned with the arrival of sound - perhaps because other techniques were available to initiate different emotions in the viewers - but Murnau’s work is still deeply moving.
Several other of Borzage’s movies are worth investigating, too: “Man’s Castle” is good, with a very young Spencer Tracy and Loretta Young; and “Little Man, What Now?” has a young Margaret Sullavan, in a very Expressionist atmosphere.
Jack Marinoon 11 Dec 2008 at 10:47 pm 5Jake, Metro Pictures was a silent movie era production company. Marcus Loew needed production companies to provide him with one new film a week for his huge theater chain. He bought Metro to provide for this. Then he bought Goldwyn pictures and Mayer productions. He put all three together and formed MGM in 1924 with Louis B Mayer as the head of the new studio. MGM sole purpose was to be a factory that released 52 films a year. One new film every week. Warner Bros were theater owners before they became distributors and then producers. In those days you have Buster Keaton, Chaplin, Griffith, and many others making their own films as an actor turned studio. They couldn’t meet the demand of the theater owners so the theater owners would capitalized the Jesse Lasky Players and DeMille under the Paramount logo.
The Brothers Warner came to LA and bought a small lot in Hollywood and began making films and they made Rin Tin Tin which made them millions and they ended up building the studio on sunset and buying First National in Burbank.
William Fox was a theater owner and bought a piece of 20th Century pictures after Zanuck left Warner Bros. Every studio had its beginning from a theater chain.
Once the 5 studios were making films and meeting the demand for the theater owners they went after the Buster Keaton’s Mack Sennett, Chaplin, and all these actor/studios and put them all under contract and they got rid of all their competition. Then you had the Golden era of film.
Then you had all the poverty row studios, Cosmopolitan, Republic, Columbia, Metropolitan and many many more…
Synner_manon 11 Dec 2008 at 11:11 pm 6As for the price, if you are a Costco member, the set will be available next week (starting Monday) at a sales price of $120 (the current regular price there is $180).
dittybopperon 12 Dec 2008 at 6:27 am 7NetFlix has it.
RWAon 12 Dec 2008 at 12:05 pm 8How about an Edmund Goulding or William Wellman box set next? Maybe even a box set of Victor Fleming films other than THOSE two.
kinlawon 12 Dec 2008 at 1:23 pm 9Jake
I only count four studios in you excellent post: MGM, Warner, Paramount, and Fox.
And what about U.A.?
You seem to be very knowledgable about Hollywood history.
Do you have any recommendatons as to one or two intros to this subject? I know there are hundreds of them, where do you think is a good place to start?
II2None59on 12 Dec 2008 at 1:35 pm 10I still remember the first time I saw ‘Sunrise’, and it was in the days before such things as Netflix came along to satisfy this movie buff’s passion for silent movies. I lucked out and found a VHS copy at a local video store that specializes in silents, foreign flicks and other unusual movies. In fact, they got so used to my tastes in films that they would offer recommendations each time I came in (’If you liked such and such, how about “Dr. Mabuse”?’ Or ‘I know how much you loved “Rashomon…”…’) One day they asked me if I was familiar with ‘Sunrise.’ I knew Murnau — had seen his magnificent ‘Faust’ and of course ‘Nosferatu’ and the clerk assured me that once I saw ‘Sunrise’ everything I loved about movies would be changed forever.
He was right. I literally ate up every camera movie, each bit of lighting, the way Murnau wove a story; was so caught up in the story of The Man and His Wife that I watched it a second time when I was done…and then regrettably returned it to the video store. The only other silent movie that affected me in such a powerful manner was Von Stroheim’s ‘Greed,’ which I saw shortly afterwards, a two hour version on VHS. And again I was stunned that moviemaking was ever, ever the way it was represented by ‘Greed’ and ‘Sunrise.’ But ‘Sunrise’ most of all.
A couple of Christmases ago, I opened a package and found a note — dictated by my ‘baby’ sister — and saying “this was on your Amazon wish list and I hope it’s what I want. They say this version comes from South Korea, but it’s the only thing I could find on Marketplace.” It was ‘Sunrise,’ the Fox special edition released a few years ago on DVD; one of those deals where you get a movie for free or little or nothing if you buy 100 movies on their list. The packaging was out of South Korea, (my sister found the copy domestically, and they said it was from a supplier in SK but one of the Fox special releases), but the movie was pristine, and once again, I drank it all in the way I would a favorite wine, savoring every single moment as if the movie didn’t belong to me and would have to be returned. I think there were times I honestly imagined I had seen it all those years before. Boy was I wrong.
And unlike some movies that affect you once or twice, and then you see it again some time later and wonder ‘What the heck was I thinking?’ thankfully it wasn’t the same with ‘Sunrise.’ I had the same emotional slam to my mind and especially my soul. I think it is one of the most beautifully romantic movies ever put on film, and my one fear is that modern Hollywood will rediscover it and have some hack director hire a bunch of hack writers and hack actors, and destroy everything that made it what it was.
Sorry to have gone on so long, but thanks DH for bringing this to everyone’s attention and for letting me write my own memories. I have already told a friend of mine that she MUST put this on her Netflix queue! (I hope she’s listening LOL). I suppose if I had to list my all-time favorite, top 5 silent movies they would be pretty much in order:
1) Sunrise (F.W. Murnau)
2) Greed (Erich von Stroheim)
3) Metropolis (Fritz Lang)
4) City Lights (Charles Chaplin)
5) The Thief of Bagdad (with Douglas Fairbanks)
Johnny Ed's Babyon 12 Dec 2008 at 6:27 pm 11II2None59:
Metropolis, with the otherworldly sets, is almost a live action cartoon. But like the best of the silents it is told in a way that dialogue is almost superfluous. The movie is so powerful that the missing parts are not that important to your enjoyment.
I wonder if the average movie goer in the silent era appreciated what they were seeing. I know Chaplin, Arbuckle, Keaton and the other stars were popular with the public and could draw large crowds. But did the average person know just how much talent the pioneers had? Filmmakers today stand on the shoulders of everyone that came before them but the silent films were made with little history to look back on.