Review - The Artist

THE Artist is a simple love story, but more than that it is a loving nod to the often forgotten stars of early Hollywood cinema.

One challenge for director Michel Hazanavicius must have been to make this film feel authentic to today’s audience. It is a silent movie about the making of silent movies. The Artist is set largely between 1927 and 1929; Hollywood was a different place. Actors lived and died at the hands of studio executives and a strange new phenomenon of “talkies” was arriving.

Unthinkable.

The film illustrates how quickly popular stars of the silent era were forgotten as Hollywood made way for younger talent. George Valentin goes from red carpet adoration to sitting in the back of his own premieres with a handful of audience members and his dog.

Valentin represents stars like Douglas Fairbanks and Buster Keaton, who went from worldwide adoration to being labelled yesterday’s news and broke as soon as the talkies arrived. It is difficult to imagine today a new development that would change cinema forever and send stars like Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise into a relative poverty.

Unthinkable.

Of course The Artist is not simply a dramatised documentary about 1920s cinema. Intertwined throughout is a delicate love story between fading silent star George Valentin played by Jean Dujardin and up-and-coming, singing, dancing, talking Peppy Miller, played by Berenice Bejo.

When many people think of silent cinema, they think of exaggerated acting and slapstick, but the romance element of this film is subtle by today’s standards. There is no passionate love scene, no grand declaration of love, but the sentiment is clear. The visual acting ability required of silent movies is high and in my view this is where Bejo and Dujardin shine. Dujardin is particularly impressive as we see the fall from grace of Valentin as he also falls in love with Miller.

The Artist is also an understated tribute to the silent stars. At one point Miller is overwhelmed and demands, “I want to be alone!” while Valentin sits at the dining table with his unhappy wife and makes her laugh with a series of poses involving his breakfast. It was a little something for the Garbo and Chaplin fans.

However this film is not just for the silent era purists; I booked my ticket early and it is lucky I did; the two previous showings in Queen’s Film Theatre sold out and I sat in a packed room at 9:15pm on a Saturday. The audience applauded at the end and we left and realised it is not 1929 anymore.