Reconsidering "The Artist"

I first saw The Artist in September at the Toronto International Film Festival.  It had received great buzz after premiering at Cannes in May.  My reaction wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic.  As the year wound down to a close and many critics groups bestowed “Best Picture” awards on the silent, black and white film, I thought it was time I checked it out again.  Maybe I missed something the first time.
I decided to see the film at the AMC Yorktown Theater in Lombard.  I was glad that even though I wasn’t a major champion of the film, at least suburbanites were getting to see something different. 

 
One of my original problems with the film was that it seemed too glossy. I felt that a film set and designed to look like something from the late 1920s and early 30s should have appeared a bit more weathered.  This time though something was wrong.  The AMC Theater had the contrast incorrectly adjusted.  The film looked washed out.  Characters seemed to be existing in a cloud.  At first I thought, “ok, maybe this was how the film was supposed to look.  Maybe it’s been adjusted since September.”  But then I realized that seeing the film at Toronto, where films often receive their North American premieres in packed movie palaces, I had originally seen the correct intended look.  So I left the theater and talked to “guest services” explaining the problem.  I was assured that the “projection booth manager” would check out the issue.  I returned to the theater and quickly could tell that nothing was being fixed.  Oh well, at least I knew I’d be able to get a free pass for my dissatisfaction (which my viewing partners and I did get.)

I then settled in to focus on the content vs. the look of the film.  One issue that struck me this time was the inaccurate setting.  The narrative begins in 1927.  Lead character George Valentin is a major Hollywood star of the silent era.  However as the film flashes ahead to 1929, Valentin and the studios seem only then to be learning about new sound technology.  The fact is that Warner Brothers began experimenting with sound in the early 1920s.  By 1927, the films Don Juan and The Jazz Singer were released with the new sound technology.  The latter of which became a huge hit and forced studios to jump on the sound bandwagon.  By 1929, many films were being converted to, or produced with, sound.  Valentin and company would have surely been aware of the excitement by then.

In the end though, this proved to be my biggest issue with the film.  Yes, there’s perhaps a bit much overrating going on with The Artist. I still don’t think it will be viewed as much beyond novelty in years to come.  The film was definitely influenced by Singin’ in the Rain, A Star is Born and The Last Laugh.  One could easily see any of these three films instead.  The Artist though pulls them together in 100 minutes.  While Singin’ in the Rain has always been one of the funniest films dealing with the transition from silent cinema to talkies, it is filled with too many irrelevant production numbers.  I’ve always wanted to edit most of them out and show what remains to my history of film classes so they can gain a better sense of the effect sound had on the industry.  With The Artist, the focus is on the narrative thereby allowing viewers to flow through the era without excess musical distraction.

The film does a great job at depicting not only what happened to actors during the transition, but also how actors generally rise and fall.  I think this is one of the chief reasons why the film is so popular with actors.  Like George Valentin, sooner or later they must all fall from the great heights of fame.  Think about all of those film and television actors who were big, say, in the 1970s and 80s and are now relegated to “Where are they now?” specials.  (i.e. the entire casts of The Partridge Family, The Brady Bunch, etc.) 

I was also much more effected by the performances of Jean Dujardin as Valentin and Berenice Bejo as rising starlit Peppy Miller.  Dujardin captures the high of success and the emotional destruction of defeat.  Bejo is charming, sensitive, and appropriately charismatic during her character’s rise to the top. Both actors are clearly bound for Oscar nominations.

I still would have loved to see more experimentation here though.  The scenes during Valentin’s downward spiral are thrilling from a cinematic point of view.  His dreams and hallucinations are inventively captured.  I wish the film would have taken a few more chances like these.

However, even with these issues and the visual distortion in my theater, I was able to appreciate much more what psychological pain “artists” from this era experienced.    New technologies come and go in Hollywood and whether we benefit from them or not, actors’ livelihood and passion are clearly effected.  The Artist is a nice tribute to lost stars and the effects of new technology.