It’s the water cooler film everyone with half an eye on the American awards season but has been yakking about, but you won’t find any of that jazz – the whole speaking thing – in French director Michel Hazanavicius’s sumptuous silent salute to pre-talkies Hollywood.
Like Singin’ in the Rain (1952), The Artist takes place on and around studio lots and follows actors making the transition to audio-enabled cinema, with radiant-faced star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) at risk of tumbling into the lonely territory of Norma “I’m still big, it’s the pictures that got small” Desmond well before his screen-filling charm has weltered.
With a hat tip – or a toe tap – to Fred Astaire’s Swing Time (1936) and classical Hollywood sets that overlapped pre and post talkies revolution, Hazanavicius also pulls off something a great deal more interesting than a sweetened homage. A dream scene in which Valentin cannot hear himself speak (throughout the film, of course, neither can we) but hears a dog barking and women giggling is but one example of The Artist’s stunning soundscape.
The story fluctuates between light and dark elements as smoothly as its gorgeously contrasted black and white photography, dowsing audiences in a nostalgic glow of sunshine and shadows. And like Rolf de Heer’s Dr Plonk (2007), another salute to silent era filmmaking, The Artist is boosted by a scene stealing Jack Russell.
The Artist’s Australian theatrical release date: February 2, 2012.
see it
skip it
don't rush
10 Comments
Couldn’t bother watching it to the end. Singing in the Rain? Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie? It’s been done, Michel.
LUKE B: I left a comment on ‘The Artist’ at ‘Man on a Ledge’. Sorry about that.
I told one lie, when I said I’d given it four and three quarters, actually I gave it five.
And I’ve proven how wet and weak I am, I couldn’t wait until tomorrow. Sigh.
I thought Jean Dujardin’s performance was mesmerizing and heart breaking. As for the dog, bitter experience has taught me that the only reason films introduce an animal into the plot, is to have it come to a nasty end. So that was a relief.
A Star is Born covered the same subject, and, being naïve, I thought the central character was John Barrymore, but the director didn’t want to cop any flack and came up with the dream sequence. The studio deliberately set Barrymore up by altering the sound and emasculating the man. Ergo the dream sequence has him loosing his voice.
Wonderful, quite wonderful movie.
I’m going to see it again in a couple of days, which is how good I thought it was. Now, I’ll get out of here before you slaughter me.
Sorry Venise but I’m with Jean on this movie – couldn’t wait for it to finish and release me from the most boring movie I’ve sat through in a long time.
There you go. However, it’s the old story of what pleases a lot of people can displease a lot of other people, or words to that effect.
I’ve just read your comment on The Iron Lady; you loved it. I thought it was superficial. That’s life.
I found it to be a delightful film but I agree, it is not for everyone. Some will not like it. That is the nature of the beast. There was some slow parts to the plot but I agree with the review that the way in which sound was introduced and removed was extremely well done. You kept waiting for the moment when the actors would start speaking to you from the screen. It kept the film somewhat mysterious right the way through. I’m not sure I’d rush back to see it a second time but when you stack it up against all the other the spoon fed typical Hollywood drivel we’ve come to expect with cliche after cliche, it was entertaining to see something slightly left of centre. Well done overall to the team who made this movie. A big ‘Like’ from me.
I didn’t like this much. I found they had stolen so much from other movies it lessened my experience. Originality is key for me in every form. The stealing of the Bernard Hermann’s music from Vertigo really ruined this movie for me.
The attempted suicide scene backed with music from a love scene, from one of the most known movies in the history of cinema, left me dry. And I am positive I have seen this ending in another movie but just can’t place it. This with the obvious similarities to Sunset Boulevard, I wanted my money back at the end.
Yes the acting was very good, but when so much is stolen, what’s it supposed to be achieving? Sure, maybe that’s supposed to be the point, highlighting the glowing history of cinema, but they could have made the same and a stronger point with more original material.
ROB: It was John Barrymore-upon whose life everyone imagines “A Star is Born” was based. Ironically, he was to star in the original movie “A Star is Born” in around 1937-38. It was at a time when Barrymore had become so much of an alcoholic he couldn’t even read the cue cards-this from a man who was a competent/fine/wonderful/terrible, whatever, Shakespearean actor.
The meaning of all this is “The Artist” is another version of “A Star is Born” which ended his own career-he was being paid at a rate which would give Mr and Mrs Brad Pitt pause to reflect. There have been many different remakes of this movie, plus dedications to Hollywood’s silent movies in other movies such as “Singing in the Rain”.
A major triumph of ‘The Artist’-for me, and now I’ve seen it twice-is the mirror imagery of the greatest movie star of his age faced with the fact that he was to play the role of “A Star is Born”; and the fact that a movie was to be made by him, whose story line he had anticipated-the film was finally made with another Hollywood actor, Adolphe Menjou. (The actual truth is Barrymore was to play the part of the movie executive, but a legend was born, etc) Finally, the whole thing is re-presented as a silent movie under the title “The Artist”.
Hey, I’m not asking you to like it because I do. I just hoped you would be interested to know there’s more to it than just a homage to the ‘silents’ with references to a heap of other movies.
Personally, the similarity between ‘Sunset Boulevard’ and ‘A Star is Born’ is negligible. Sure, two movies about two silent era stars is relevant, as is the amazing luxury of silent era lifestyles. But the real imagery lies between ‘A Star is Born’, John Barrymore, and ‘The Artist’. The whole thing is refracted like light shining through the facets of a jewel. Sort of…..