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City Girl (1930)
Jul. 30th, 2009 08:57 amA recent sale at an online shop allowed me to finally pick up a copy of Murnau, Borzage at Fox. The title of the collection is slightly misleading. There are two films (and one "reconstruction" of a lost film) by FW Murnau and ten films by Frank Borzage. It's also a little strange that these two directors were lumped together. The reason is that Murnau apparently had a huge impact on Borzage, but Murnau had a huge impact on a number of other Fox directors as well, most importantly John Ford, whose WWI movie Four Sons (1928) was largely shot on the sets of Murnau's most famous film, Sunrise (1927).
Nonetheless, I've lusted after this set ever since it came out. I haven't seen anything by Borzage, whose silent films are widely considered to be among the greatest, and while the early talkies of his included here aren't as highly rated, they are all incredibly rare. I'm particularly interested to see his adaptation of Liliom (1930). As for the Murnau in the set, I already owned Sunrise on DVD and have seen it several times, including on the big screen. However, I hadn't seen City Girl, which I don't believe has ever been released on home video before and which has intrigued me ever since I read that it was partly shot in Oregon. I watched it last night.
Murnau was one of the most famous directors to come out of Weimar Germany in the '20s. His most well-known German film is probably Nosferatu (1922), although in film circles he is just as well known for a couple of later films, The Last Laugh (Der letzte Mann, 1924) and Faust (1926). Then there's his first American film, Sunrise, which still regularly ranks highly in lists of the greatest silent films ever made and indeed on lists of the greatest movies ever made period.
And so we come at last to City Girl, which is in many ways a mirror of Sunrise and one that based on one viewing I may actually come to prefer. Sunrise is one of those movies that I admire more than love. Like Citizen Kane, much of its fame rests on its dazzling technical virtuosity. City Girl is a much more low-key film technically. Another difference is that it's more specific and less fable-like. In Sunrise the characters are called The Man and The Woman and The Woman from the City. In City Girl the protagonists are Lem and Kate. But both movies feature a trip to the city and a return to the countryside. Both feature love triangles, although in City Girl it is two men and a woman rather than two women and a man. Both movies are about a spiritual journey and renewal through human love.
City Girl is about a innocent farm boy who travels to Chicago to sell his father's wheat crop. He meets a lonely waitress, they fall in love, and get married. He brings her home to Minnesota (although these scenes were shot in Oregon), and his father rejects her as a gold-digger. A band of farmhands comes along to help with the harvest, and one of them makes a play for the wife, offering to rescue her from the difficult situation she's in.
The film is absolutely gorgeous visually, as you would expect from Murnau. Another reversal of Sunrise is that where in that movie the visit to the city is the centerpiece and source of visual pyrotechnics, in City Girl it is the return to the countryside that's the centerpiece and a source of a completely different type of visual splendor: rolling waves of wheat, whirling harvest machines, and proud, lonely farmhouses. (Dave Kehr observed that it may have been an inspiration for Terence Malick's Days of Heaven.) The first two thirds of the movie are filled with sunlight, and it's only in the climax that you get Murnau's famous dark chiaroscuro.
The story is rife with beautiful, sharp little details. The characters are vivid, in weakness and strength. The dramatic tension, particularly around the angry old patriarch, is powerful. It builds slowly to the climax. Murnau seems to be in complete control and completely at ease with this very American production. The ending is just as hokey as the end of Sunrise, perhaps even less likely, but Murnau sells it, largely because he's not afraid of the melodrama. When I saw Sunrise in the theater, I saw a lot of tears in the audience when the lights came up. I can imagine City Girl having the same effect. It's a story of love triumphant, and Murnau gives it an amazing spiritual transparency and grace.
I'll definitely be watching this one again. Can't wait to explore the other treasures in this boxed set.
Nonetheless, I've lusted after this set ever since it came out. I haven't seen anything by Borzage, whose silent films are widely considered to be among the greatest, and while the early talkies of his included here aren't as highly rated, they are all incredibly rare. I'm particularly interested to see his adaptation of Liliom (1930). As for the Murnau in the set, I already owned Sunrise on DVD and have seen it several times, including on the big screen. However, I hadn't seen City Girl, which I don't believe has ever been released on home video before and which has intrigued me ever since I read that it was partly shot in Oregon. I watched it last night.
Murnau was one of the most famous directors to come out of Weimar Germany in the '20s. His most well-known German film is probably Nosferatu (1922), although in film circles he is just as well known for a couple of later films, The Last Laugh (Der letzte Mann, 1924) and Faust (1926). Then there's his first American film, Sunrise, which still regularly ranks highly in lists of the greatest silent films ever made and indeed on lists of the greatest movies ever made period.
And so we come at last to City Girl, which is in many ways a mirror of Sunrise and one that based on one viewing I may actually come to prefer. Sunrise is one of those movies that I admire more than love. Like Citizen Kane, much of its fame rests on its dazzling technical virtuosity. City Girl is a much more low-key film technically. Another difference is that it's more specific and less fable-like. In Sunrise the characters are called The Man and The Woman and The Woman from the City. In City Girl the protagonists are Lem and Kate. But both movies feature a trip to the city and a return to the countryside. Both feature love triangles, although in City Girl it is two men and a woman rather than two women and a man. Both movies are about a spiritual journey and renewal through human love.
City Girl is about a innocent farm boy who travels to Chicago to sell his father's wheat crop. He meets a lonely waitress, they fall in love, and get married. He brings her home to Minnesota (although these scenes were shot in Oregon), and his father rejects her as a gold-digger. A band of farmhands comes along to help with the harvest, and one of them makes a play for the wife, offering to rescue her from the difficult situation she's in.
The film is absolutely gorgeous visually, as you would expect from Murnau. Another reversal of Sunrise is that where in that movie the visit to the city is the centerpiece and source of visual pyrotechnics, in City Girl it is the return to the countryside that's the centerpiece and a source of a completely different type of visual splendor: rolling waves of wheat, whirling harvest machines, and proud, lonely farmhouses. (Dave Kehr observed that it may have been an inspiration for Terence Malick's Days of Heaven.) The first two thirds of the movie are filled with sunlight, and it's only in the climax that you get Murnau's famous dark chiaroscuro.
The story is rife with beautiful, sharp little details. The characters are vivid, in weakness and strength. The dramatic tension, particularly around the angry old patriarch, is powerful. It builds slowly to the climax. Murnau seems to be in complete control and completely at ease with this very American production. The ending is just as hokey as the end of Sunrise, perhaps even less likely, but Murnau sells it, largely because he's not afraid of the melodrama. When I saw Sunrise in the theater, I saw a lot of tears in the audience when the lights came up. I can imagine City Girl having the same effect. It's a story of love triumphant, and Murnau gives it an amazing spiritual transparency and grace.
I'll definitely be watching this one again. Can't wait to explore the other treasures in this boxed set.
