101 / BD 8 City Girl

[Cinetwist]

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.

[TMDaines]

The more Blus I watch the more I'm glad I bought a region-free Blu player (and this is depite only viewing them on a 37" screen capable of 720p). As great as upscaled DVDs can look, Blu-ray just takes it up another level. I've not watched any "old films" on Blu yet but I can't wait to watch the Czech version of Sunshine, M and City Girl on Blu this week.

[TheGodfather]

Received it this week and watched it right away. And my great God, did it look awesome! excellent demo material on how old films can look on BD.
Having never seen the film before, I loved every second of it. Looking forward to the Kalat commentary.
Tremendous release, thanks so much! =D> =D>

[zedz]

Throw another bouquet on the fire, Nick. Watched it last night and the image was simply ravishing. Exquisite texture to every shot and it looked like you could count every hair on Farrell's head! (Did anybody else find the "666" spelt out on Mary Duncan's forehead in her early scenes particularly unnerving in HD?) Film's not too shabby either.

[souvenir]

The booklet contents seem to have been changed from what is listed at the MoC site. There's the Adrian Danks essay (which can also be read at the Senses of Cinema site) but nothing else aside from photos. It's also 28 pages rather than 40.

(Updated now)

[antnield]

DVD Times

[Will Barks]

Watched CITY GIRL recently and was amazed about the quality. It looks like it has been shot yesterday. Marvelous! =D>
I'm a bit disappointed with the booklet, though. I'd have welcomed more information about this wonderful film.
Still a great release!

[cdnchris]

Agree with David. Just got mine in the mail from Amazon (really fast this time, only took a couple days, sadly quicker than when its sent from a local warehouse) and it looks outstanding. Far beyond what I was expecting.

[Cash Flagg]

Blu-ray.com

[cdnchris]

Blu-ray review

[triodelover]

Came today from Amazon UK. Just finished watching. I'm at a loss for words. I have the Fox box version that came out in 2008 and I though it looked outstanding. This is just jaw-dropping. 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. True, Lem spends most of the film trying to figure out where he misplaced his backbone but, unlike the Democratic leadership in the Senate, he finally locates it in the end. Kate is a firebrand. Great film experience. (BTW, has anyone noticed how much the young Guinn Williams unfortunately resembles a certain ex-President from Crawford, Texas?)

[markhax]

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.

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.

[peerpee]

BTW, has anyone noticed how much the young Guinn Williams unfortunately resembles a certain ex-President from Crawford, Texas?

Noticed it right away -- it's shocking isn't it?

[triodelover]

BTW, has anyone noticed how much the young Guinn Williams unfortunately resembles a certain ex-President from Crawford, Texas?

Noticed it right away -- it's shocking isn't it?

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.

All I can do after City Girl (and it will be M tonight) is to quote Oliver, "Please, sir, I want some more." O:)

[CRT]

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?

[triodelover]

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?

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.

I'm not sure what your reviewer thought was wrong with the ending. The ending to Sunrise is one of redemption and forgiveness and that was presumably what Murnau wanted. Here Lem finds redemption, Kate is vindicated and Lem's father seeks and is granted forgiveness. Seems perfectly consistent to me and though throughout the film the possibility is left open that other outcomes are possible (which is one of the reasons I think that City Girl works better as a film than Sunrise), there's no reason to think that the ending doesn't reflect Murnau's wishes.

[CRT]

Here's the review in question:

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).

[tojoed]

According to Lotte Eisner, William Fox shortened the film and gave Murnau's former assistant A.F
Erikson the job of making some scenes and adding others.
She also says that in 1971 she saw a new copy and "...there remain in it many traces of Murnau's unique visual style and lighting, mutilated as it is, with much of its nuance eliminated."
Murnau sent to William Fox some " Suggestions for changes for "Our Daily Bread" in a last effort to save the film. I can post them later if you're interested.
Murnau had dreamed of ".. a great symphony of our daily bread, a Durer wood engraving...".
"City Girl", for all its merits, is not it.
The review you quoted is, more or less, correct.

[peerpee]

It's the 1970/1971 "previously unseen" silent version find which we have issued on Blu-ray. The closest known version to Murnau's original vision.

[Cash Flagg]

DVD Outsider

[swo17]

I actually got this release early in the pre-release sale but only got around to watching it last night. (Still need to watch the commentary though.) It's really a lovely film, and it cannot be stressed enough how astounding it looks in motion (owing as much I suppose to the print quality as to MoC's stellar presentation). There was almost a disconnect for me in the sense that it was a silent film but looked as though it could have been made in the '60s. I really love how the film sort of plays like Sunrise in reverse, where instead of a girl from the city coming in and corrupting tranquil country life, we find plenty of corruption in the country to begin with. Both films also brilliantly capture both marital strife and bliss (no better visualization of this than the tumble through the wheat fields early in City Girl), though one marriage is seasoned and the other new. In this way, the two films complement each other very well.

Forum readers will also be comforted to know, I'm sure, that I checked all the math relating to the price of wheat bushels throughout the film and found no mistakes. Just in case anyone was worried about that.

[Svevan]

The first half hour of Kalat's City Girl commentary does a great job of comparing City Girl to Sunrise (perhaps there's more later on, I haven't finished the commentary). In a way, City Girl feels like a commentary on Sunrise's politics, by pointing out that neither locale is preferable. You are correct that there is "plenty of corruption in the country to begin with," but 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. There seems to be an inherent advantage for Kate in the city, because she is mostly independent (her work is gendered, but she lives alone); when she moves to the country, she SHOULD be less happy in that she is given more "women's" work and must exist in a much more stratified culture (not to mention all the family problems which are closely linked to this gender-division). The bounty of men working on the farm have an immediately superior place to her. Yet this aspect of the country does not seem to bother her so much as the respect she gets in the home from her male relatives. I certainly am rooting for Kate and Lem to get back together at the end of the film, even though the ending makes it clear that nothing has changed structurally, only personally. Perhaps that's enough. Having recently watched Naruse's "Repast," I find the endings somewhat similar (not sure how I feel about Repast though).

I might be going off on a tangent though. Perhaps "structures" aren't Murnau's primary concern. The Last Laugh toys with some allegorical commentary on the elderly, but most of that is in the sarcastic epilogue. The way we've been talking, saying words like "city" and "country," is the way people always seem to respond to Sunrise and City Girl, and I feel an "institutional analysis" is a major part of Murnau's light/dark good/bad polarities (and their inevitable ambiguities).

[swo17]

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.

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.

[tojoed]

Don't forget that Murnau's original intention was to show the production of "our daily bread" from the cornfields to the mechanical slicer in the restaurant, although this is only hinted at in the film we have. I think there's no doubt that he loved the countryside more.

[Michael Kerpan]

I would say that this BR release is as close to perfect as I could possibly imagine. Perhaps for the first time ever, I re-started the film as soon as it was over -- and watched it again all the way through (this time with the excellent commentary).

One thing I wondered was if Boris Barnet would have had a chance to see this. CG's amazingly lyrical presentation of nature really strikes me as prefiguring Barnet's later work (such as Bluest of Seas -- which could also have drawn some inspiration from Tabu, of course).