German expressionism found its way to Hollywood towards the end of the Silent Film Era when Hollywood imported foreign directors in order to breathe new life into the industry, giving new creators a chance to make bigger-budget films than those in their native country. F. W. Murnau was enlisted by William Fox to make a German Expressionist style film within Hollywood, resulting in Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, produced in 1927. It employs German Expressionist sensibilities, such as an extreme emphasis on the composition of shots, stylised mise-en-scene including distortion and sharp edges, high contrast lighting, and editing techniques such as superimpositions, all working in unison in order to convey a characters’ inner psychology and internal state of being. In short, Expressionism’s characteristics are “those functions of cinematic devices that go beyond presenting basic narrative information and add some quality to the scene that would not be strictly necessary to our comprehension of it” (Krämer, P., Thompson, K. and Grieveson, l.). An intimate relationship between the viewer and the silent image is formed: lack of sound would seemingly mean a less interactive experience as a spectator, but as a result of this, the silent moving image must work hard, in this case employing extreme techniques in order to be able to convey a close portrayal of the inner workings of the characters’ mind, something films with spoken dialogue arguably fail to do.
The first expressive technique employed by Murnau to convey inner emotional states of being is high contrast, extreme lighting. This is often referred to as ‘chiaroscuro lighting’, which can first be seen at 7:12 into Sunrise, (Murnau, F.W.) (figure 1), in which the Man is battling an inner conflict: which woman should he choose? The lighting here exaggerates his shadow, suggesting he has two identities: one of a Man loyal to his wife, and the other, his shadow, his darker side with potential for adultery and even conspiracy to murder. Darkness, and its contrast to light, is often used to convey a transition from morality to evil; at 11:08 (figure 2) the Man walks towards darkness to meet the woman from the city, showing his journey to destruction and evil. In addition, at 11:59 (figure 3), the woman is backlit: the darkness of her figure is emphasised by the light of the moon, alluding to the immorality of her intentions to evoke chaos and devastation in the Man’s life. As this scene progresses further to 12:32 (figure 4), the Man and Woman from the City are lit evenly from left to right within the shot, creating the idea the pair’s minds have fused and they are now linked to the darkness of the setting itself. As Thompson suggests, “For the most part, Expressionist films used simple lighting from the front and sides, illuminating the scene flatly and evenly to stress the links between the figures and the decor.” (Thompson, Kristin, and David Bordwell) ; Expressionism often incorporates the characters themselves into the main composition of the shot in order to depict a sense of belonging: the Man has joined the Woman from the City in immorality. Through William Fox, Murnau was afforded the finance to construct huge, purpose built studio sets, giving him the opportunity to incorporate classic expressionist characteristics, one of which being a preoccupation with reflective surfaces; throughout this whole scene, in the background of the shot, the moonlight can be seen to be reflecting off of the lake. This creates the idea of self-reflection and interior perspective, suggesting that the Man here is questioning his morality and reflecting on who he truly is and whether he could be capable of murder. Furthermore, the use of darkness to create the idea of an evil mental state is reversed at 33:47 (figure 5) in which the Wife hides from the Man in a shadow. An expressionist distorted use of shadow here has the effect of showing just how terrified she is of her own husband; she wishes she could become unseen, invisible. The contrast of light and dark often used in German expressionism also shows here just how much the couple have grown apart; they are at opposite ends of a spectrum. Their emotional relationship and its deterioration is documented by Murnau’s use of light.
Further evidence of Expressionism in Murnau’s Sunrise can be seen in his use of editing. Expressionism’s roots are based in the distortion of reality in order to convey mental states, and one way Murnau does this is through superimposition. At 19:48 (figure 6), the Man lays in bed and superimposed images of the sea cover the screen. This is representative of the fact he is quite literally in over his head, drowning in the conspiracy constructed for him by the Woman from the City. His psychological state at this point is one struggling to comprehend the weight of his decisions, as demonstrated by the superimposition. Similarly, at 22:10, (figure 7), another superimposition is used in which the Woman from the City has her arms around the Man’s body, even though she isn’t physically there. This demonstrates the fact that she is holding his mind prisoner, and he feels trapped in a plan that he does not want to follow through. As well as superimposition, Expressionism’s editing involved infrequent but dramatic intertitles, mostly due to the fact that most of the exposition of narrative was completed with exaggerated acting and lighting. The intertitles used by Murnau are significant in the sense they are also used to convey psychological states of being. For example, at 14:01, (figure 8) the intertitle reads ‘Couldn’t she get drowned?’, and the words begin to distort and slip off the screen, representative of how the morals of the pair are slowly deteriorating and the Man is descending to a lower level, base frame of mind in which he can rationalise killing his wife.
The final elements of expressionism I will be focusing on are the stylised mise-en-scene and composition used by Murnau. The initial shot of the village in which the Man and Wife live at 3:52 (figure 9), is one of repeated spikes: the tops of the houses and the trees are all the same shape, creating the idea of distorted reality common in Expressionist films, and further depicting connotations of violence, foreshadowing the chaos that will ensue. This is continued into the bedroom scene at 4:22 (figure 10), in which the composition of the shot involves sharp, jagged edges running into each other. There is a candle in the middle of the shot, perhaps representative of the Woman from the City’s fiery attitude and dangerous intent. Furthermore, at 17:00, (figure 11), the Man walks home from his first rendezvous with the Woman. Dark nets cover the set, creating the illusion of cobwebs, a suggestion he has visited a dark, uninhabited part of his psyche. A part which is capable of conspiracy to murder a loved one. This idea of physically visiting a part of the mind within the compositions of the shot is frequently used with Murnau: later on, at 45:15, the setting fades from a busy street with cars and people, to a garden full of trees and light (figure 12), where the couple walk before they are plunged back into reality on the street. This suggests that the couple, when they are together, are in a sort of paradise: their emotional relationship is mending, and this is reflected in the fact they are central to the shot. They are each others’ worlds once again. This leafy paradise is repeated later when the couple are getting a professional photograph and stand in front of a backdrop at 54:25 (figure 13). This is representative of German expressionism and the ideas of being inside someone’s head blending with new Hollywood ideals of the romance narrative; although Sunrise is an Expressionist film, it is influenced by Hollywood’s style, which often means that it is less explicit in its expressive characteristics.
In conclusion, the expressive techniques of late silent cinema allowed filmmakers to illustrate inner emotional and psychological states through the intense and exaggerated use of lighting, editing, mise en scene and composition. Murnau’s expressionist techniques in Sunrise are unique in that they are created through Hollywood ideals: the narrative is essentially a romantic (albeit morbid) story, the classic cliché of the ‘other woman’. Sunrise is, therefore, a distinctive blend of both German expressionism in its depiction of the inner psyche, but also the simple, romantic Hollywood narrative with specially constructed sets. Sunrise is neither exclusively Expressionist or exclusively Hollywood, but its adoption of techniques from both categories, most namely Expressionism, allow for Murnau to create an intimate relationship between character and audience by showing us the deepest, darkest recesses of human emotional states.