The Artist has already picked up several Golden Globe nominations and will probably pick up more for the Oscars. You wouldn’t think a silent, black and white movie, in 4:3 aspect would garner this much accolades. You would be wrong. Just watch and try to hate it. You can’t. The packed house at The Charles the afternoon I saw it applauded in the end. It captivates. You won’t have another experience like it in the theatres for ages.
So why did I not warm up to it during the early parts of it? Was it the conceit was very twee? Was it that it felt too cute by half? Was it that I was analyzing it too much for its cinematic references? For its technical feats? For its historic accuracy? For its reasoning for being? For why I wasn’t smitten with it? No idea why I reacted funnily in its early going, but when they referenced Citizen Kane, I perked up and began to enjoy the movie. Then I was wholly charmed once I recognized Bernard Hermann’s score for Vertigo that underscored the rush to love at the end. The music put a big, big smile on my face, and it may have pushed the movie to being the best I’ve seen this year (as short as it has been).
The Artist is about George Valentin, a suave actor in swashbuckling silent films. It is 1927 and talkies are on their way, but Valentin doesn’t want to star in talkies. The audience came to see him rather than hear him. In promoting his latest film, he bumps into Peppy Miller. She gets captured in photos by the paparazzi. She enjoys it so much she auditions for a minor role in a movie. Her career is in bloom. She’s on the way to becoming a star of the early talkies. He’s on his way to becoming a forgotten, forlorn actor. His career fades and brings him to dispair. Only Peppy stands in his way of faded glory.
I’m a big fan of classic cinema, and The Artist was all about the old movies. I saw in the film many other classic movies. There was Singing in the Rain and Citizen Kane. There was L’Illusionniste (I know it’s recent, but I had the same French feeling) and Vertigo. The dog was straight out of the Thin Man series. It doesn’t necessarily harken back to silent movie’s like Hugo did, but it recalls classic early cinema.
Being a silent film, the actors had to mug it. Whereas Jean Dujardin plays the main character as a ham, Bérénice Bejo is sweet and sincere as the woman who falls for The Artist. I can’t express how smitten I was with her. She’s absolutely enchanting to look at in this film. She enhances the watching experience.
I think I can watch this film again.
4 of 5 stars.
