Sunrise sits on the cusp of two eras, representing the silent film at the height of its artistic sophistication and poetic expressiveness, and the sound film in its infancy. Released in late September 1927--just days before Warners released The Jazz Singer--it was one of many silent films of 1927-28 to which a synchronized musical score was added. Though it was made in a Hollywood studio, the first American film of F. W. Murnau looks less like an American product than it does a German film; in fact, it was conceived by Murnau and written by Carl Mayer while they were still in Germany, and, the international success of The Last Laugh gave Murnau a wedge with which to command that his personal vision be carried out. Murnau took a classic, even trite, situation--the marriage of a peasant couple (George O'Brien and Janet Gaynor) invaded by a big-city seductress (Margaret Livingston)--and put it in the realm of fable, stripping it of melodrama and elevating it to poetry. Sets and camera angles alike are imbued with symbolism and used to reveal psychological states. The fluidity of Murnau's “invisible” tracking shots is now legend, but it is the film's ability to move freely through its plethora of techniques (double exposures, expressive lighting, angled and distorted sets) that leaves the viewer immersed in the fate of its characters, and stunned by the ingenuity of its creators.