Starring: Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo and John Goodman
Written & Directed By: Michel Hazanavicius
Produced By: Thomas Langmann and Emmanuel Montamat
Distributor: The Weinstein Company
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 100 minutes
Website: weinsteinco.com/sites/the-artist/
Budget: $15 million
Genre: Romance / Comedy / Drama
Release Date: November 23, 2011
Since the earliest days of the film industry, Hollywood has had a profound fascination with itself and the mechanics of the celebrity it produces. The allure of Hollywood Past only intensifies with each passing decade, as each new generation of filmmakers emerges from the most passionate film buffs. These creative pioneers are both well-versed in film history, and eager to leave their own mark on it.
Michel Hazanavicius (OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies) is one such director. It is only because of his tireless obsession with cinema (and his enthusiasm for reinterpreting it) that a black-and-white silent feature could land in modern-day movie theaters. With The Artist, Hazanavicius extends the concept of a period piece beyond simple wardrobe and set dressing, attempting to recreate the acting and filmmaking techniques of the time. The result is a strange marriage of old and new that doesn’t always pay off, but hits much more than it misses.
The Artist tells a familiar Hollywood tale: as synchronous sound takes hold of the industry, silent film star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) falls from the heights of fame as young ingenue Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) embraces the new method of filmmaking and becomes a star. The awkwardness of this reversal of fortune is compounded by the actors’ unspoken longing for one another, which manifests itself in varying degrees of openness and shame as their paths repeatedly cross over the years.
While there’s little in The Artist that wouldn’t pass the Hays Code, Hazanavicius isn’t afraid to take Valentin’s fall to some extremely dark places. Dujardin is convincingly dashing as the Errol Flynn-like matinee idol, but it is his ability to convey Valentin’s despair and emasculation in his later years that is key to his performance. His descent into alcoholism is only suggested in the film via an accumulation of empty bottles in a bin, but Dujardin makes it implicit with his shift in body language and strained expressions. He wears his failures like a threadbare but comfortable robe.
Bérénice Bejo, meanwhile, is radiant as the talkies’ latest “It” girl. Her large, expressive eyes and mouth are used to maximum effect to convey emotion without resorting to title cards, and her knack for physicality makes her believable as a world-famous comedienne. Peppy Miller begins the film beaming and carefree, not afraid to appear a little silly if it’ll get her onscreen. The sadness that accumulates in her over time, even as she achieves her dreams, lends the character a quiet dignity.
Not all of the performances are as spot-on. John Goodman, in particular, never manages to capture the appropriate broadness of performance. His character, an easily-enraged studio boss, remains much too naturalistic to achieve its intended comic effect. James Cromwell comes off as strangely wooden in the role of Valentin’s dedicated manservant, and Penelope Ann Miller does little with her role as Valentin’s long-suffering wife.
The Artist is not entirely a silent film. Sound is used twice during the course of the movie – both times to smart effect – and the soundtrack includes both traditional score and popular music from the time, but it does have a few long stretches of distractingly pure silence. Hazanavicius also made every effort to tell the story visually, and keep title cards to a minimum. This, coupled with a running time of an hour and forty minutes, does make the film drag in certain spots; it definitely feels longer than the films it is referencing.
The biggest question about The Artist is who the title actually refers to. It doesn’t seem to be Valentin, whose rejection of sound is repeatedly treated not as a matter of artistic principle, but rather as a stubborn and misguided act. The few glimpses of his pictures reveal an assembly-line approach to entertainment, and his self-produced attempt at redemption is a jungle adventure chock-full of hoary cliches like quicksand and natives with spears. Peppy Miller is similarly a cog in the Hollywood machine, starring in trite romantic comedies that end with engagements and winks to the camera. The only true artistry here is that of Hazanavicius himself, who found a way to bring his heartfelt, anachronistic vision to modern-day cineplexes overstuffed with remakes, sequels and computer-generated explosions.
3.5 Stars (out of 5)
