The Artist

What better way to kick off Oscar Season than The Artist?

Like last month’s Hugo, this is another tribute to silent cinema, a celebration of the movie industry’s simple beginnings and nostalgia for old-school Hollywood. As such, The Artist is not just great cinema – it is about cinema. And it is truly wonderful.

Despite the aforementioned comparison to Hugo, the two films could not be more different. Scorsese used all the latest cutting-edge technology when designing Hugo: CGI, green screen, digital cameras and it was in Real 3-D. Meanwhile, The Artist goes one step further in its homage to silent cinema by telling the story mostly through silent cinema. As such, audiences have to adjust to inter-titles for key snatches of speech, 1920s editing techniques (fades, wipes) and the film is shot in 1:33 aspect ratio. No IMAX treatment for The Artist. All of these methods add to the film’s charm and personality and suddenly a new generation of cinemagoers are acclimatised to a forgotten genre of movie-making.

The actual story of The Artist relates to a pivotal moment in cinematic history: the arrival of sound in Hollywood and the production of ‘talkies’. We follow George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), a successful silent movie star, who gets cast aside by his studio as they hunt for new faces to headline the talkies. Meanwhile, Valentin falls in love with one of his fans, Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), who becomes his peer then rival and finally his successor as the talkies grow in popularity along with her newfound stardom. It is a tragic-comedy narrating one man’s downfall and touching upon such core Hollywood themes as love, loss, success and failure.

Admittedly, that sounds like quite a lot of story to convey without dialogue. But never fear, the cast more than meet the challenge. Dujardin brings natural charisma and Hollywood good looks to Valentin but his acting is what matters. He has already bagged Best Actor at Cannes and deservedly so. Dujardin manages to convey more in a look than many actors can do with a stack of monologues. The series of botched takes where he falls in love with Peppy is a particular treat. Meanwhile, Bejo is adorable as Peppy and audiences will fall in love with her along with Valentin. The pair has natural chemistry having worked previously with director Michel Hazanavicius on the OSS 117 French spy parodies and the scenes they share are a joy.

Hazanavicius himself deserves a commendation for achieving the near-impossible: telling a story about the introduction of sound without using sound. The whole film is incredibly well-executed, embracing the limitations of the 1920s format in order to pack in plenty of story. Hazanavicius also gives free rein to Ludovic Bource’s score which is fundamental to The Artist’s success, carrying the pace along with much of the emotion.

More importantly, Hazanavicius’ experience directing comedy on the aforementioned OSS 117 films is also put to good use. The Artist has a pretty depressing storyline in which we follow one man lose his fortune and hit rock bottom. But light-hearted relief is never far away. As such, we have lots of cheesy posing in the films-within-the-film, some fantastic dream sequences (one of which involves placing a cup down on a table and is an early contender for Scene Of The Year) and regular support from Valentin’s performing dog, notably a fantastic Lassie moment. This could be the first year in which an animal is nominated Best Supporting Actor.

The Artist is destined to sweep the awards throughout Oscar Season, having already performed brilliantly at Cannes and the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards. And in many ways, this hype is a good thing and will ensure The Artist finds an audience outside cinephiles. But this film isn’t typical Oscar fodder. It is void of politics, biopic, big names or Loud Acting. The foremost intention of The Artist is to entertain, charm and remind 21^st century-audiences of the simple magic of cinema.

And for that, it deserves to be labelled a masterpiece. After all, silence is golden.

★★★★★