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Sean @ the Movies: The Artist
It’s 2012, but for this review, we are going to rewind a few years and return to the late 1920’s, for my next review, of The Artist.
The Artist is written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius, and stars Jean Dujardin, as a silent film movie star, who seems to be at the prime of his career. He is very charismatic and seems to carry that into his roles. Fame might be good to him, but his marriage to his wife, played by Penelope Ann Miller, seems to be not the greatest. One night, he stumbles upon a lady, played by Berenice Bejo, while leaving a movie premiere and the minute they meet, their lives become connected as she uses this chance as a way to get into show business. And while she starts from the bottom, she makes her way to the top, while his career seems to be dwindling, due to his stubbornness to leave silent movies and move onto “talkies”.
And there is one more thing, this is a silent film, that’s right, other than a few times, there is no sound other than the musical score. So that means there is some reading involved, as you do get some of the dialogue printed out for you. I can think back to a few Pixar movies where little dialogue was used, first half of Wall-e and who can forget the first few minutes of Up. But I was very curious to see how it would be for an entire movie. Well most of the time you can kind of read the actors lips, instead of waiting to see what they say. But one of my negatives about this movie, they don’t always let you know what the people are saying, and there is one particular moment towards the end, where a supposed speech is given to our main actor, and we are given no help in what the guy said to him. If you are going to make a silent movie, either have no words or have words for all spoken parts.But you also have to remember this is coming from the same guy who saw Ponyo while I was in Japan, and it didn’t have any subtitles, so I had no idea what was being said for the whole movie.
This is a great love letter to movie history, and if you are a fan of movies, I would suggest seeing this in the theaters, just for the simple fact, for a few hours, you can go back in time and experience what is was like to watch silent films back in the day. Both leading people did an amazing job, both really shined in their performances, and I also need to give some credit to our leading man’s dog, who was the comedic sidekick through out the movie. And I need to also give a little recognition to the leading lady in this film, Berenice’s beauty seemed to light up the screen every time she was on it, so you can’t help feeling a little swooning of your heart when she appears.
I stated earlier that this is a love letter to movie history, but for me I feel that Hugo was a better movie, in making you remember why you love going to movie so much in the first place. The Artist is not a bad movie in any way, I guess I ended up not liking it as much as many others did. It’s getting some Oscar buzz right now, which is really no surprise, But I don’t think it deserves Best Picture.
Let’s come back to 2012 as we wrap up this review, and I have one more review to finish up and then it’s time to finally post my top ten movies of 2012. So keep an eye out for that, which will hopefully be up in a few days.
Until next time, it’s a new year, why not go out and see a movie.
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