Review of City Girl (1930) by Gringotex J — 12 Feb 2009

City Girl was a real eye-opener for me. I always assumed that Murnau's leap from mobile camera in Sunrise to stationary camera in Tabu was necessitated by extreme remote location shooting, but City Girl shows Murnau already abandoning the dolly tracks. I can only recall two non-diegetic dollies: a brief one in the city and the extraordinary one in the run through the wheat field. Every other camera movement is associated with moving farming equipment. The result is a decoupage that is strikingly contemporary. It appears to me to be Murnau's first "sound" film. He could have recorded dialogue without changing a single shot, and it still would have worked.

Thematically, it's an interesting inversion of the City/Country dichotomy in Sunrise. The city brings morality to the country rather than treachery. And it's the country that supplies the lovers' playground instead of the city.