Actual grade: 10/10
I had, of course, heard many of the wonderful things people had to say about THE ARTIST before I finally got to see it last night. I knew it was a shoe-in for a Best Picture nomination and a frontrunner for the award itself, as well as for its lead actor, Jean Dujardin. I also knew that it was a black-and-white silent picture, of the kind not often made since the evolution of talkies in the 1920s. I was both excited and slightly skeptical about how I would react to this seemingly way-past-outdated format. The short answer? It blew me away. To quote a cliché, they really do not make them like this anymore.
Though the introduction of sound to motion pictures was obviously a revolutionary technology, the early films that employed it still largely maintained the spectacle of the silent films that came before -- this combination of spectacle and sound led itself naturally to musicals. It's no coincidence that the first widely released talkie was THE JAZZ SINGER. Musicals reached their peak in the 60s (4 out of the 10 Best Picture winners that decade were musicals), but have since faded into now-and-again curiosities (ala MOULIN ROUGE). After that, the dialogue itself came to the forefront, and soon movies were featuring scenes of characters sitting in a room just talking for fifteen or twenty minutes (a prime example of this kind of filmmaking can be found in, you guessed it, Quentin Tarantino). But now we've evolved even past these battle of wits, dialogue-heavy films. What is now front-and-center in most films is not picture, it's not music, it's not dialogue -- it's special effects. Started as far back as 1975 by Stephen Spielberg with JAWS and cemented in 1993 by JURASSIC PARK, special effects were originally a revolutionary tool used to tell a story, much like sound was back in the 20s. But now it has been turned by some (Michael Bay, Roland Emmerich, Zack Snyder...not to name names) into not just a tool, but the focus of a film itself (ala TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON.) Not to say that one form of film (silent, musical, dialogue-heavy, or effects-centric) is inherently better than others (though you could certainly make an argument for some), but that has been the natural progression. It is therefore fascinating to see what can be accomplished by stripping away all the layers that movies have been burdened with over the years and tell a story with nothing more than shadows and light.
That's all merely a preamble to say that THE ARTIST was a revelation. Shot in 1:33:1 Academy ratio, the same ratio used in silent movie days, the film is in every way a throwback to the early days of Hollywood...while somehow simultaneously remaining modern. It's a fascination combination that, in less capable hands, could have ended up as a jarring collision of styles. As directed by French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius (who also wrote the screenplay), it is a beautiful medley of past and present of movies, and hopefully a glimpse of the future as well.
Without the crutch of special effects and dialogue, Hazanavicius must rely on nothing more than the visual composition of his shots, the capabilities of his actors, and the music of the soundtrack to set the mood and tell a story. The film is only 100 minutes long (incredibly short for this day and age), as the story must, by necessity, remain brief without the elaborative help of words. It is instead painted in broad, sweeping emotional strokes, just like the silent films of the olden days, yet somehow in the hands of lead actors Jean Dujardin as George Valentin and Bérénice Bejo as Peppy Miller, the emotions never feel broad. Again, in less capable hands, the story could have easily succumbed to saccharine melodrama, but Dujardin and Bejo breathe life into every single frame, portraying simple, believable, varying and (most importantly) specific emotions throughout those 100 brief minutes. The two leads are, wisely, unknowns in the United States, Dujardin being French and Bejo being Argentinian. However, the periphery of the film is populated by American character actors that many audience members will recognize, from John Goodman to James Cromwell to Missi Pyle and Malcolm McDowell. (There's also a sidekick-dog that audiences of any country will fall in love with instantly.)
Hazanivicius and his cinematographer, Guillaume Schiffman, frame every shot with an eye for both beauty and precision. With the visuals being the main storytelling device (even title cards are used sparingly), each shot must be chosen carefully. For example, when George is leaving the studio office after being summarily fired, to be replaced by a new wave of "talkie stars" (including Peppy), he runs into Peppy on the stairs outside the studio. He is descending -- she is going up. Such simple devices help the storytelling to flow beautifully from scene to scene. (Shiffman has already been nominated by five separate organizations for his cinematography in this film, and I would easily expect the Academy Awards to add a sixth.)
Do I think Hazanavicius and THE ARTIST are trying to spark a resurgence of silent films? No. Do I think Hazanivicius was deliberately making a commentary on modern moviemaking? No, but the film can definitely serve as one if you want it to. I don't believe either of those things. I believe he simply set out to make a good film and tell a moving story, and found the best way he knew to do it. It's amazing what effect the stripping away of sound and effects does -- you become aware of every noise around you in the theater, and you literally can't look away from the screen or you'll miss something. It's an engrossing experience unlike any other I've had in the cinema (only occasionally in my living room or a college classroom). Is the story revolutionary? No -- SINGIN' IN THE RAIN tackled the same subject exactly 60 years ago. But is it told in a unique, effective and affecting manner? Absolutely. Out of all the films I've seen that people have been talking about for Best Picture, this is far and away my personal favorite.
Do not walk -- run -- to see this movie in theaters before it's too late.
Your turn, Fellow Addicts. Have you managed to catch a screening of THE ARTIST yet? If so, what did you think? Did you find the style refreshing or antiquated? What did it make you think about the state of modern cinema? (It made me a little depressed.) Vote in the poll below and then hit the comments!
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