It’s been about a week since The Artist became the first (mostly) silent movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture since the first ceremony in 1929 and it has returned to theaters as a result. I took the opportunity to watch it again and can confirm that this little film is no fluke. It is one of the most delightful times one could have had at the movies last year, and yet, up until the award season, not many people had even heard of it. For that reason, I think the film’s sudden success came as a surprise to the movie-going world. Another movie with similar purpose and entertainment value, Hugo, had the advantage of more widespread appeal. It was also a bit more accessible than The Artist, though I wouldn’t say it was necessarily better.
Those of us who follow cinema knew the big Oscar gold would go to one of these two movies and I frankly didn’t care which. Both are extremely important for the furthering of wide appeal of classic film, specifically the silent era, territory unknown to most of the general public. Hugo used a fictional story to relay a true message, that old movies desperately need preservation and that the first step to that end is remembering that they exist. The Artist simply recreates the experience of a 1920s silent movie as accurately as it can, proving that it is not the dull time that mockery would suggest. The most common reason that people don’t like silent movies is that they haven’t seen one.
The reason that more critical minds return to the silent era with such exuberance is because it was the purest form of the movies. When sound and color and widescreen and 3-D gradually made the movies more and more modern with passing years, we got farther away from simple artistry as we embraced mindless sensation. When Hollywood made its official transition from silent movies to sound, a few of the pioneering figures of the medium refused to change for a time, not willing to yet give up the simple beauty of images alone. Charles Chaplin was one of these, with his 1931 feature City Lights being a silent film in a sound world. French director Michel Hazanavicius, who has an obvious fondness for Old Hollywood, has done the same. He has made a silent, black and white film in the classic ratio in a world that would much rather shell out for the sensation. Therefore, he is one of the great innovators of modern movies.
The story of The Artist has not exactly broken new ground. A successful Hollywood star named George Valentine (Jean Dujardin) is unprepared for the onset of silent cinema and is not only incapable of adapting to that world, but allows his personal life to fall to shambles as well. His marriage has failed because of his obvious infatuation with a rising co-star, Peppy (And how!) Miller, who is so young and charismatic that she has no problem fitting into the future. She also does her best to help George through his own crisis. The basic plot is very similar to other movies like Singin’ in the Rain, but has probably never been this moving. Indeed, the entire film is made up of superb imagery, with scenes that range from being highly amusing (like the ones involving a little dog named Uggie, who is practically a co-star all by himself) to being quite powerful.
Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo were made to be in silent movies. They both received great amounts of well-deserved praise for their performances that are naturally expressive. Most silent stars weren’t as hammy as everybody thinks they were. Their dancing, which they show off in two brief scenes, also seems to be perfectly in tune with the time it depicts, and it is worth mentioning that the musical they seem to be starring in together at the end appears to be similar to the Busby Berkeley musicals that had reached their peak in 1933. These film-makers did their homework. This last scene is one of only two that feature sound other than the magnificent score, and the only one to feature dialogue. It is interesting to hear Dujardin’s thick French accent which could have easily been a plot point. Many of the old stars that had the look for silent movies simply didn’t have the voice for sound. This sequence is also important as a symbol of the acceptance of the necessity of change.
There were some complaints when The Artist took home the gold, with those people mostly being in favor of Hugo. I can understand that, but I can also see the other point of view. The Artist was probably not the best movie of 2011, but it may as well be called that. It certainly isn’t perfect. The sound dream sequence early on completely, if briefly, disrupts the tone of the film, and the use of the theme from Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo during the climax is not nearly as powerful as something original could have been, simply because that music has already been put to good use in its original form and is too distracting here. Nevertheless, there is something about this movie that puts a smile on my face. It is technically a great movie because of what it does rather than what it is, but it is still far more charming, pleasant, and memorable than anything else now playing in theaters.
In short, with or without reservations, this is a film I can safely give my highest recommendation. Even if you are not as delighted as I was, there is a strong chance you’ll be surprised by how much you can enjoy something as old-fashioned as this. Basically, try something new by trying something old.
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