Blog #14 pt.2

I will show how lighting and set design convey good and evil. The film “Sunrise” is
very well made, in my opinion. I say this because the director does an excellent job of
making sure the audience gets what he is trying to say. In some cases he does this in a
very subtle way in other cases he does it quite blatantly. The makers of the film
accomplished this with set design and lighting techniques. I will give examples of this
throughout this paper.
First I will discuss set design. The way set design plays a roll in showing whether a
person or even a place is evil is evident from the very beginning. When we see the
drawing of the train station come to life there are some things that make the viewer think
that the scene they are watching is impure. If you pay attention to the people walking in
the train station, you see that the majority of the people are wearing dark clothing. This
shows that the bustling city life is not one that is pure or good. Another example is when
we see the ship super imposed on the beach. The ship is mostly black and the woman we
see is wearing a black swimsuit and a black swim cap. In making these things the color
that they are in the film the director gives a sense of impurity when it comes to the city.
Also the people of the city are all in a hurry. They seem like they do not enjoy life because they don’t slow down to take everything in.
On the other hand when the country people are shown they are all wearing light
colors. When we first see the boat full of the people from the country, the men are
wearing lighter colors than the men from the city and the women are all wearing white or
very light colors. Also unlike the city folks they seem like they are happy. Happy to be home and happy to see their families and neighbors. The director chose to make these things the colors that they are because he wanted to show how city life is evil and unappreciative of life and country life is good and pure.