![Shocked :shock:](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
Gotta love those people still sitting on the fence (or worse) regarding Blu.
Truly beautiful screenshots. Can't wait to see it in motion, where it'll be even more impressive.
I had the same reaction to City Girl. Sunrise is arguably more visually compelling, but I think overall City Girl works better as a film.triodelover wrote: I'll probably be pilloried as a heretic for this and I adore Sunrise, but I actually think City Girl is a better, more complex film. Mary Duncan's Kate (who is a dish) and Charles Farrell's Lem are more multi-dimensional than Gaynor and, in particular, O'Brien in Sunrise.
Noticed it right away -- it's shocking isn't it?triodelover wrote:BTW, has anyone noticed how much the young Guinn Williams unfortunately resembles a certain ex-President from Crawford, Texas?
Seems unfair to brand him since he can't defend himself, although he is from Texas and his father (also named Guinn) was a Democratic Congressman from Texas back in the '20s. Those were the days when the Democratic Party in the South was home to the Klan.peerpee wrote:Noticed it right away -- it's shocking isn't it?triodelover wrote:BTW, has anyone noticed how much the young Guinn Williams unfortunately resembles a certain ex-President from Crawford, Texas?
Murnau left the film in a dispute over the title. He wanted it to be called Our Daily Bread, which of course King Vidor appropriated a few years later for a film IMO that was much better suited to that title. It's not clear when he left the film or whether it was before completion or in the editing stage.CRT wrote:I had seen City Girl before I got this disc recently. It's an utterly wonderful movie that I know will be making its way up my favorite films list.
But my question is in regards to something I read in a short review blurb in a home video guide regarding the film, that I hadn't read anywhere else and doesn't seem to be brought up anywhere else.
The review I read only gave the film 2 stars out of 4 because they said that Murnau was actually fired during production and didn't finish the movie. The reviewer said his disappointment stemmed from the fact that one can only wonder how much better the ending could have been had Murnau remained on the project.
I'm sorry, I never read that anywhere...Murnau didn't direct the whole film?
City Girl
Friedrich Murnau, who directed the silent vampire classic "Nosferatu," was removed from the director's chair before "City Girl" was completed and it shows. But so do the marks of his inimitable camera direction. The story concerns a Minnesota grain grower who visits the Windy City and returns with a waitress as his wife. Frustratingly inconsistent, leading you to wonder what could have been had Murnau remained behind the camera (he died the following year).
This is an interesting point. Let's not forget that, though there is corruption and temptation in the country, all of the characters there are essentially redeemed in the end. Whereas, for all we know, the inhabitants of the city continue on in their daily bustle, largely indifferent to one another's problems or certainly to the concerns of a family of farmers many miles away (from that distance, their very human concern for livelihood only finds form in the plummeting stock price of a bushel of wheat, traded on an exchange like any other faceless commodity). Also, note how the diner's patrons ogle Kate's supple 1080p legs in exactly the same fashion as do the harvesters in the country. Perhaps the lesson here is that temptation is present in both worlds, but that because life is slower in the country, everything seems more magnified there--the indiscretions seem more scandalous but the chance for redemption is also more real. In any case, this is all in contrast to the treatment of Kate, who is a strong and well-meaning female presence regardless of her environment (though her "666" curls are an interesting touch!) and who serves as a kind of fleshing out of the "girl from the city" archetype established in Sunrise.Svevan wrote:I nonetheless feel that Murnau finds more humanism and life in the country: both the city and the country are defined by the forms of work their inhabitants must take, and the mechanization of city life is dehumanizing when compared to the earthiness and individuality inherent in country life.