The Artist

With so many movies looking to advance technology and special effects, The Artist stands out by going all the way back to the silent era of black and white films. This is a charming little movie that I think younger viewers might just enjoy as much (if not more so) than older viewers or those steeped with knowledge of film history, as it will truly be unlike anything they've probably ever seen before. Director Michel Hazanavicius has essentially made a filmed experiment, trying to capture the look, feel, and tone of a lightweight romantic comedy-drama from the 1920s. He has succeeded, and in my mind, this is all The Artist should be viewed as.

What I mean by that is this should simply be viewed as a very sweet and charming experimental film, not as a life-changing experience. With all the awards hype and critical praise that has been heaped upon the film, I'm already beginning to sense a bit of a public backlash. I don't know what some people were expecting out of this movie. They complain that it is formulaic, predictable, and steals from old movies. To those people, I can only say congratulations on pointing out the obvious. I'm sure that Hazanavicius intended that all along. He's not trying to reinvent the silent movie, or make some kind of daring comment on it. He's simply replicating the kind of simplistic and melodramatic storytelling that was common in the era. I've also heard people complain that the plot wouldn't hold up if the movie was in color or in sound. Of course it wouldn't, that's the whole point. There's not a single modern element to this movie's presentation, acting, or storytelling. And in a way, The Artist is better for it.

I apologize if I sound somewhat bitter, but I have spent part of this weekend listening to certain people criticize this movie for the very things it was striving to do, which makes little sense to me. In the case of this movie, the cliches and the melodramatic storytelling are not faults, but part of the experience. Maybe these people had inflated expectations due to the award hype it's been getting. For me, I was just happy to be watching a movie I felt was worthy of the awards it was getting, after recently being disappointed by Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Best Picture...Really, Oscars?...) and The Iron Lady (a great lead performance searching for a movie worthy of it). I would still pick The Descendants over The Artist, but that's a personal call. I can still honestly say that I was smiling while watching this movie from the first frame to the last. The filmmakers show that they not only know the conventions of the genre from the cinematic time period this movie honors, but that they know how to do so with a touch of wit.

I realize I've gone pretty far into this review without talking about the plot. In the case of The Artist, I think the story it tells is oddly the least important element. The joy and the thrill comes from the experience of watching a black and white silent movie (well, mostly silent...there's a very clever nightmare sequence that incorporates sound) in the theater. But as for the plot, it covers a five year period from 1927 to 1932, and concerns itself with the fall of silent movies, the rise of talking films, and the early days of the Great Depression. We witness these events through the eyes of George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), a silent screen star who, as the film opens, is on top of the world in Hollywood, despite a loveless marriage to his wife (Penelope Ann Miller), who seems to get less attention at home from him than his faithful and ever-present Jack Russel dog, Uggie. While posing for photos outside the theater at the premier of his latest film, George has a run-in with a hopeful young actress named Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo). There is an instant connection between the two, and when Peppy gets a job as a dancing girl in George's next movie, sparks fly.

But before sparks can fly too much, both of their fortunes change. The Hollywood landscape is changing with the introduction of talking films, and while Peppy's career advances, getting larger roles to the point that she is getting top billing in her films and being seen as "America's Sweetheart", George remains stuck in the past, believing that talking pictures are simply a novelty. When the studio lets him go from his contract, George puts all of his money into an expensive and independently made silent movie, which is a massive bomb at the box office, and all but sinks the last bit of his career. With the Depression hitting America and George's fortunes all but gone, he is forced to sell everything he owns, and move into and share the tiny apartment owned by his former chauffeur (James Cromwell). The remainder of the film switches back and forth between Peppy's increasing fortune, and George's descent into alcoholism and depression. And yet, there is a somewhat playful tone throughout the movie that all but assures us everything will be all right in the end. Here, a happy ending is not just anticipated, it's etched in stone, as the two actors find each other once again, and Peppy attempts to get George back on his feet.

If Hugo served as Martin Scorsese's love letter to classic Hollywood, then The Artist is a successful attempt to replicate it as closely as possible. Despite the presence of recognizable actors (other familiar faces in the film include John Goodman, Malcolm McDowell, and Missi Pyle), they never become a distraction, nor do they seem out of place in a 1920s light melodrama. Just look at Goodman portraying an early Hollywood era, cigar-chomping, gruff studio exec, and tell me the guy just doesn't embody the part. This is a movie that could have been sold to an audience of the time it tries to recreate, but more than that, it's appealing to today's audience, because there's simply nothing else like it on the screen anymore. Not only that, the movie's just a great entertainment - Charming, often very funny, romantic, and nostalgic all at once. You can tell that this was a labor of love for everyone involved, and nothing has been overlooked.

It would also be a crime not to mention the music score by Ludovic Bource, as it is the only thing we hear for almost the entire film. His score is often playful, sometimes ominous and somber, but always sweeping as it underscores every scene and emotion up on the screen. This is a rare treat for fans of film music, as it's one of the few times in a theater that you get to solely concentrate on the music, and just how it brings out the emotions of a scene as much as the actors. His score should be studied by both film and music enthusiasts, and I'm sure will become an important and valuable lesson in film scoring in the near future.

The Artist is a simple, graceful little film, and should be viewed as such. I had a great time, and as long as your mind is open to watching a silent movie (I have heard reports of people walking out, because they didn't know it was a silent movie.), you should find a lot to like, if not love, here. I, for one, view this as a cinematic experiment to go back to the early days of film, and see it as a rousing success at just that.

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