Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo go cheek to cheek as George Valentin and Peppy Miller in ‘The Artist.’ Credit: The Weinstein Company/AP
Having finally seen The Artist last week at the Manlius Art Cinema, I’m inspired to jot down some of my impressions of it. I don’t claim that my feelings about the movie are of any more interest than anyone else’s, they’re simply the impressions of someone who is an enthusiast of actual silent movies of the 1920s and who, in fact, sees a lot more silent movies than current-run productions.
There is an unfortunate feature of my character that causes me to go into new movie set in an earlier time period with the intention of “exposing” the inaccuracies. And I have to say that I was thoroughly prepared to dislike The Artist, despite the critical praise it has been getting. I wasn’t disappointed about the number of things I had to complain about, as they certainly were there, but I have to admit that, overall, there was a convincing period atmosphere, right down to bit actors that fit the type of the ‘20s.
The biggest complaint about the movie that I’ve heard from fans of the silent era is that the lead character (played by Jean Dujardin), who is clearly modeled on Douglas Fairbanks, is simply “out” of pictures as soon as talkies come in. He’s a big star in silent pictures, but as soon as they talk he is given no chance to appear in sound films—he’s just unceremoniously dropped by the studio and becomes a member of the unemployed. (After a brief and unsuccessful attempt to make a silent movie independently.) In reality NO big star of silents wasn’t at least given a chance to star in talkies—even those who flopped as talkie stars made a few of them, and generally their first talkies were financial successes, regardless of the aesthetic values.
Jean Dujardin as George Valentin in "The Artist." Credit: The Weinstein Company.
But if we ignore that and accept the movie for what it is—a 21st Century attempt to revive an outmoded style of moviemaking, The Artist is a success, albeit a qualified one. I got the impression that the moviemakers had decided to make a silent film first, then went out and studied a group of very well known silent movies. Many of the bits in the film can be directly attributed to similar scenes from specific silent films. Of course, that isn’t going to be picked up on by the average moviegoer today, and perhaps that was the intention.
Incidentally, The Artist isn’t really a silent picture, as it has a soundtrack of music and effects and even one brief dialogue exchange. (In the early talkie era it would have been marketed as a “sound” film with “thrilling music and sound effects,” or something like that.)
The crowd of about 65 who saw this in 35mm at the Manlius Art Cinema (a 1918 “shooting gallery” theater, by the way) were clearly enthralled. And, while I also enjoyed the picture, I couldn’t help wonder how these people would have taken to one of the great films actually made during the period depicted in The Artist. Maybe it’s time for official re-releases of The Crowd, Lonesome, or Sunrise…
