From Sunrise (1927) and A Place in the Sun (1951) how has the films audience changed over the intervening years?
From Sunrise (1927) and A Place in the Sun (1951) how has the films audience changed over the intervening years?
The first film Sunrise (1927) is a fable-like story of corruption and redemption. The Man (George O’ Brien) is a rustic farmer who lives with his wife (Janet Gaynor) in a peaceful, rural country town. Various shots of the couple are shown, as they have picnics in the fields and play with their baby, many audiences at this time could relate to these two characters and their lifestyle as rural areas were still heavily populated, and family values were held strong. Then the audience is introduced to the Woman from the City (Margaret Livingston), who seduces and has an affair with The Man. She also represents the emergence of independent and semi-dangerous women in the 1920s. The audience at the time would have been shocked at the character, which shows no morals and is portrayed in a scandalous night gown whilst smoking; furthermore her proposal to The Man of drowning his wife would have been an unimaginable act at the time. The audience gets the impression that the Woman from the City resembles the city itself, tempting and sinful, however when the couple go there later they find themselves having a good time. In the scenes in the city we see The Man trying to redeem himself and make things right again with his wife by taking her to restaurants and beauty parlours, from this we can see that the audience also wanted to see things get back to normality and for the plot to resolve happily. On the couples return to the countryside a storm appears to drown the wife, but she is eventually found and the family is reunited happily at the end. The basic moral at the end is that a man should be happy with what he has, and that you should hold family values close and not lose yourself to temptation.
