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Promotional poster for the silent black and white drama
comedy film The Artist.
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Scintillating
Silence by Linh
French director, screenwriter and producer Michel
Hazanavicius’s film The Artist is a
visual and technical homage to the silent film era with references to silent
film acting, Hollywood celebrity fanaticism, and other technical aspects of
silent film-making before talkies arrived. The
Artist won a swag of film awards before being nominated for ten Academy
Awards, following three wins at the 2012 Golden Globe Awards.
The
Artist is a black and white silent film that covers the years
1927 to 1932, and focusses on a popular and famous Hollywood silent film star
whose career ends when audio technology for talkies (talking movies) arrive,
which reflects the real life problems actors faced in having their voices heard
by the cinema audiences at the time.
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SILENT
SUSPICIONS: Doris (Penelope Ann Miller) is unimpressed
with her husband George kissing and flirting with other women in the film The Artist. Image: The Weinstein
Company.
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In 1927, George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is the biggest
Hollywood star whose films are similar to those of silent film star Douglas
Fairbanks and whose charm and charisma in public has earned him many fans.
George has a dog named Jack, who appears in some of his films and is his close
companion at work and at home. During one of George’s publicity appearances for
his latest silent film A Russian Affair,
an aspiring actress named Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) accidentally comes into
shot for one of his photo opportunities. George graciously allows her to share
the spotlight with him and this infuriates the movie studio boss Al Zimmer
(John Goodman) when the press concentrates on George’s ‘mystery woman’ instead
of the film. When Peppy auditions for one of George’s upcoming films as an
extra, he insists she be cast in his film A
German Affair, after witnessing her talent and potential.
After the success of this film, Al meets with George and
urges him to stop performing in silent films and join him in utilising the
latest advancement in film called talkies, which enables actors to be audible
to audiences. George refuses to star in talkies, claiming that he is an artist
who does not need technology to act, and he quits. As he leaves the studio,
George meets Peppy ascending the stairs, who excitedly tells him she has signed
on with the studio to star in their upcoming films. From this point, it becomes
apparent that Peppy is a star on the rise while George’s career is coming to an
end. This staircase scene is pivotal and foreshadows what is to come in the
film; the decline of George’s career as he is seen descending the stairs, while
Peppy’s climb up the stairs indicates her rise to stardom.
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ASPIRING
ACTOR: Peppy (Bérénice Bejo) attempts to impress a stranger
(Malcolm McDowell) at her audition in the film The Artist. Image: The Weinstein Company.
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The
Artist is aesthetically authentic in its attempt to capture the
beauty of silent films technically and visually. Director Hazanavicius has
diligently researched the various techniques used in silent films to give a
truthful and accurate portrayal of film-making and screen-acting of the silent
film era during the late 1920s and early 1930s in Hollywood. The music used to
accompany the film’s action is well chosen, despite actor Kim Novak’s *claims
that The Artist has misappropriated
the music score from Alfred Hitchcock’s film Vertigo, in which she starred. Hazanavicius dismissed Novak’s
allegations and claimed he was “inspired by Hitchcock's work” (BBC news 2012).
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SUPERSTAR
STATUS: Peppy (Bérénice Bejo) has achieved her dream of
Hollywood stardom but feels it has come at the expense of George Valentin's career
in the film The Artist. Image: The
Weinstein Company.
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The leading actors are French with a superb supporting
cast that includes American and British actors. Jean Dujardin is brilliant as
the silent film actor George Valentin whose star power fades when silent films
wane as talkies become popular. George is seen as proud and resistant to change
so his refusal to embrace the inevitable in the rise of talkies has resulted in
his downfall. George’s real reason behind his fear does not concern the
technology itself, but the quality of his voice and how its foreign-ness may
sound to American audiences.Dujardin won numerous
awards for The Artist including an Academy
Award for Best Leading Actor, a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy
and an International AACTA (Australian Academy of Cinema Television Arts) award
for Best Actor.
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MOVIE
MAKER: Al Zimmer (John Goodman) not only makes movies but
ensures that the movie industry keeps evolving and improving in the film The Artist. Image: The Weinstein
Company.
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Hazanavicius’s wife Bérénice Bejo took five months of tap
dancing classes, and to acquire the “American actress persona” she watched film
clips of Joan Crawford to emulate her **flapper style and Marlene Dietrich
(despite being German-born) for her winking and air-kisses. Bejo gives an
excellent portrayal of the gorgeous fresh-faced and starry-eyed ingénue Peppy
Miller. The beautiful Argentine-French actor epitomised the excitement and
adventurous nature of her character Peppy, the type of personality that
reflects the way talkies were affecting the film industry at the time. It is in
contrast to George’s attitude and fear of talkies as he clings to his old style
of film-making when he writes, produces, directs and stars in his self-funded
silent film called Tears of Love
which flopped against Peppy’s talkie film The
Beauty Spot.
Peppy represented the latest stage in film-making’s evolution
while George’s resistance to talkies sees him stuck in the past and left
behind. Bejo has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting
Actress and also in the same category for a Screen Actors Guild Award. She received a Best Leading Actress nomination for a BAFTA award.
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TALENTED
TWOSOME: George (Jean Dujardin) joins Peppy (Bérénice Bejo) in a
dance sequence in the film The Artist.
Image: The Weinstein Company.
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Notable performances come courtesy of John Goodman who is
fantastic as the studio boss Al Zimmer, whose eagerness to embrace talkies is
not only about making profits but to help evolve and grow the film industry;
James Cromwell is charming and affable as George’s faithful personal assistant
named Clifton who still cares about George even after he fires him; Uggie the
Jack Russell Terrier as Jack is a crowd-pleaser and scene-stealer and Penelope
Ann Miller is engaging as George’s long-suffering wife Doris, who suspects he
is having affairs, feels neglected and lonely, especially as George always
brings his work home and never stops “acting”.
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COURAGEOUS
CANINE: Jack the dog (Uggie) plays the hero as Peppy (Bérénice
Bejo) watches on in the film The Artist.
Image: The Weinstein Company.
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The
Artist is a sublime cinematic experience with fantastic
performances from the ensemble cast, providing humour, wit and drama performed
without spoken words. There are many memorable moments that audiences will love
including Jack the dog’s heroic rescue, rehearsal/audition/dance sequences,
Peppy’s private moment with George’s jacket in his dressing room, or the
staircase scene that is an allegory of the ups and downs of show business and
how it affects those who work in the film industry. It’s a film about
intertwined destinies when one kind gesture from a superstar at the height of
his career can lead to unexpected generosity in return when he loses
everything.
The
Artist,
Behind The Scenes Film Trailer (courtesy of The Weinstein Company):
Director:
Michel Hazanavicius
Writer: Michel
Hazanavicius (screenplay)
Cast: Jean
Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller,
Malcolm McDowell, Missi Pyle, Beth Grant, Joel Murray, Ken Davitian, Ed Lauter,
Bitsie Tulloch, Basil Hoffman, Nina Siemaszko, Bill Fagerbakke, Cletus Young,
Uggie the dog.
Producers:
Danile Delume, Antoine de Cazotte, Richard Middleton, Emmanuel Montamat, Thomas
Langmann
Cinematographer: Guillaume
Schiffman (Director of Photography)
Original
Music Composer: Ludovic Bource
Film
Editors: Michel Hazanavicius, Anne-Sophie Bion
Production: Laurence
Bennett (Production Designer), Gregory S. Hooper (Art Director), Robert Gould
(Set Decorator)
Costume
Designer: Mark Bridges
Running
Time: 1 hour and 40 minutes
References:
*BBC news online staff writer. ‘[I]Artist director
responds to Kim Novak Vertigo claim[/I]’. 10 January 2012. BBC news website:
**From the Oxford Dictionary: flapper noun, informal - (in the 1920s) a fashionable young woman
intent on enjoying herself and flouting conventional standards of behaviour.
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