Silence is Golden

Movies: The Artist

I have some mixed feelings about The Artist. The film is undeniably beautiful and novel. We rarely see movies that are filmed in black and white these days, let alone silent films. The film's homage to the silent era of cinema and the advent of sound is touching, and its stars (the magnetic Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo) light up the screen.You can't help but melt at Dujardin's radiant smile. And Bejo doesn't look like a typical actress: her "flaws" (large front teeth, wide-set eyes) make her beautiful in a way that sets her apart from the dozens of interchangeable starlets in the industry. Half of the pleasure of the watching The Artist was just gazing at the lead actors.


On the other hand, there is something about The Artist that struck me as gimmicky and forced. I'm not talking about the fact that it's a silent, b&w film--I actually thought that was a very cool tribute to silent cinema. I think it has something to do with the wildly vacillating emotions the film tries to force on the audience. And that damn dog that's in every scene. I mean, I like dogs, but come on! There is nothing more manipulative than using an animal for reaction shots.

But let's go back to the forced emotion issue. One of my favorite scenes in the history of film is that very last shot of Charlie Chaplin in his masterpiece, City Lights. In the film, Chaplin plays a poor man who falls in love with a blind woman who sells flowers on the street for a living. He eventually pays for an operation to cure her blindness. In the final scene, the woman is now the successful owner of a flower shop. Chaplin walks by her shop and the woman, not knowing it was this poor man who saved her from destitution and paid for her operation, offers him a flower. As he gazes at her with love and adoration, she realizes who he is. Here's the famous final shot:

City Lights, particularly that last scene, is deeply emotional in a subtle way. The whole movie, despite its heavy subject matter (blindness, poverty), is a comedy, so the final shot feels that much more sincere--and not in a schmaltzy way.

The Artist is also a comedy with heavy themes. Dujardin plays George Valentin--a star of the silent screen who is slowly pushed out of the business as "talkies" come to dominate the movies. Bejo plays Peppy Miller, clearly modeled after Clara Bow and other "It Girls" of the 1920's. As George's career sputters out, Peppy's star rises until she is rich and famous beyond her wildest dreams--and George is divorced and living alone in a crappy apartment after losing his fortune. At the climax (SPOILER!!), George goes so far as to put a gun in his mouth (with the dog barking and biting at his pant leg--I admit that I did tear up at this point). As he's about to pull the trigger, Peppy rushes in and convinces him not to give up. And then in the very next scene, George and Peppy are gaily tap-dancing in a movie together. Wait, whaa...? The ending is some serious emotional whiplash. We watch George's life fall to complete shit for an hour and then immediately snap back to happy days in the final seconds of the film. The pacing of the movie was way off.

If it sounds like I'm tearing The Artist a new one, it's only because I'm holding it to a high standard. The Artist has won dozens of awards and is set to be one of the front runners for Best Picture at the Oscars this year. It's also a critical darling. And while it is a lovely film, it's ultimately too forgettable and just too...not enough...for me to give it the accolades other critics have given it. For my money, Hugo, which pays the same tribute to early film, is the superior movie and should win Best Picture. That said, it's a beautiful film and it was fun to let the images, rather than the words, tell the story for once.

3.75 out of 5 stars