The Artist, the nearly totally silent film shot in black-and-white, is, paradoxically, a joyful noise that will delight your senses and leave you, no pun intended, speechless. If you decide to skip it based on either its silent or black-and-white characteristics, you’ll be doing yourself a major disservice.
Director Michel Hazanavicius has constructed no less than a sizzling masterwork celebrating not just the silent film but the film medium in general–both as a whole and as the sum of two very distinct halves separated by the breakthrough of sound. The Artist simultaneously amusingly and poignantly portrays the emotional turmoil suffered by a silent era star (Jean Dujardin) once Hollywood rather quickly transitioned to talkies in the late 1920s. Dujardin, winner of Best Actor at Cannes, plays George Valentin, a Rudolph Valentino-esque god of the silent film. Opposite him is the up-and-coming Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), who Valentin “discovers” and gives a major push to her own eventual stardom Their trajectories are mirror opposites of each other, as Valentin refuses to embrace this revolutionary talking cinema while Peppy nearly overnight becomes a major starlet of the new art form. There’s a scene where Peppy walks by a marquee for a film called “Guardian Angel,” a fitting symbol for her persistent devotion to George (whose own marquee, “The Lonely Star,”sums up his fallen state compounded by his prideful resistance to Peppy’s devoted friendship). John Goodman and James Cromwell deftly play a studio chief and Valentin’s chauffeur. The film’s hands-down Best Supporting Actor though is a delightful Jack Russell Terrier, who demolishes any preconceived notions you may have about film dogs. The Jack Russell in Beginners ought to take acting lesson from The Artist’s pup.
As outlandish as it sounds this exquisitely entertaining film will make a serious run for the Academy Award as Best Film. Producer Harvey Weinstein, no stranger to winning Oscar strategies, seems to be overcoming nicely the additional taboo that could scare away jaded filmgoers: The Artist, adhering to the strict Hays Code of the 1930s, contains nothing more explicit than a hug (even kissing was off limits) and no violence either (other than a strategically placed “Bang”). You’ll want to more than hug this film.
9.5 Bangs (Out of 10)
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