Day 3- The Artist
Director- Michael Hazanvicius
Year- 2011
What is it? Best Picture Oscar winning black-and-white silent movie.
Why I watched it? After hearing that my local Blockbuster was closing down and having a clearance sale I ventured down to the store and battled my way past hoards of other like minded people to try and find a steal in a bargain bin. I bought several DVD's and as I was about to pay for them when I saw The Artist on blu-ray for just £4. Just four pounds for an Oscar winning film? That has to be a good deal, right? Oh God yes.
It's not every day that you buy a movie and feel like you ripped off the movie distributor, but I feel that I owe more money to everyone involved in making this wonderful joyous work of art.
The movie begins in 1927 with a premier screening of a silent-picture (a silent film within a silent film? It's like Inception. A silent inception) being shown before an enthralled audience and after a standing ovation we see George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) come out to take a bow before he introduces his co-star and pet Jack (played by a Jack Russell named Uggie) and the two bask in the spotlight much to the chagrin of his female co-star who's impatiently waiting to be introduced backstage.
It's clear that Valentin is on top of the world as he poses for the paparazzi outside the cinema when young adoring fan, the brilliantly named Peppy Miller (played by the director's wife Berenice Bejo) is accidentally pushed onto the red carpet and into the spotlight. Peppy takes advantage of her 15 minutes of fame and plays up to the cameras and plants a kiss on Valentin's cheek. The newspapers the next day are covered by the photos of the kiss with the headline "Who's that girl?", something that Valentin's wife Doris (Penelope Ann Miller) doesn't take kindly too.
Peppy takes uses her new-found fame and manages, with the help of Valentin, to convince studio boss Al Zimmer (John Goodman) to give her a job as a an extra. George draws a beauty spot on Miller's face to help her stand out from the rest of the actress wannabes and we see her rise from extra to small roles such as 'the maid' to full-blown movie star in a fantastically innovative montage of stills of movie cast credits. She also grows closer to Valentin as we can see in a beautiful shot of outtakes in which the two mess up take after take of a ball scene because they can't stop dancing together, a scene alone which deserved the Oscar that the movie won. However there's something on the horizon that threatens to ruin the friendship between Peppy and Valentin and change the whole movie industry as they know it- the advent of sound.
Valentin upon being first being shown a talky picture from Zimmer completely laughs it off as just a fad (something I currently think about 3D movies. I hope I'm not wrong like Valentin was). Peppy Miller on the other hand is more open to the idea of non-silent films and her first talking movie Beauty Spot trounces Valentin's money-sucking silent epic folly in box office gates. Al Zimmer ends production on silent movies and whilst Peppy Miller is pushed into super stardom George Valentin is put out to pasture and in a downward spiral that leaves him penniless and divorced with just his pet Jack and loyal chauffeur Clifton (James Cromwell) standing by his side.
The Artist reminded me of why I fell in love with movies and the magic that cinema is capable of when it's not simply issuing remakes of classic films, dreary money-making sequels, soulless CGI flicks or rebooting a popular comic book franchise for the umpteenth time. Had I not seen this movie and had it rekindle my love of cinema then this blog wouldn't exist and my crazy idea to watch a film a day wouldn't have been born. It's a picture so full of imagination and wonder that it could only be made outside away from the conveyor belt Hollywood system. By taking away sound (there are intertiles with dialogue every now and then, but these was a concious effort to use these as sparingly as possible) director Michael Hazanvicius has to be creative on how to tell his story and how to make us feel for our characters.
He's aided in that by a pair of sensational actors. While it could have been simply nepotism giving a big role to his wife the gorgeous Bejo more than proves that she landed the role pure merit and both her and Dujardin have superb chemistry and convey emotions so well with facial expressions alone that it's incredibly easy to imagine that they would have been huge hits if they had been silent actors in the 1920's. Cromwell and Goodman are also great psychical actors and fit their roles to a tee and everybody is almost outdone by Uggie the Jack Russell. When The Artist came out there were calls for the Academy to make a special award for the dog and while that never came to pass there now is a separate award show for animals in movies and Uggie now has his very own star on the Hollywood walk of fame, complete with paw print.
The acting as mentioned is great, but Hazanvicius has a few tricks up his sleeve. I've already touched up the outtakes scene and cast credits montage, but there is a terrific use of sound in a dream sequence and a delightful scene where Bejo playfully acts with a dinner jacket. Hazanvicius also takes advantage of the silent picture medium by using an intertiles as an incredibly tense, cruel cliffhanger near the film's climax. The one word on that tile "Bang!" might by favourite movie moment in years, although the film's feel-good ending sequence rivals that and left me grinning ear-to-ear, making me want to stand up and give it a one-person standing ovation.
There are also little references to movies of the era for movie buffs. indeed Valentin's name is only one letter off 'Valentino', and his decent from movie star is similar to the fate that fell upon Douglas Fairbanks. Peppy even says 'I want to be alone' at one point echoing Greta Garbo, who like Peppy, was one of the lucky silent era movie stars who was able to move into talking pictures. The plot also has similarities to Singing in the Rain and A Star is Born and the film as a whole seems like a love letter to Hollywood's golden era, silent movies and MGM musicals.
Yes, it's black-and-white, yes it's a silent picture, but I'd urge everyone to watch this film of pure cinema perfection, if only for the cute dog. A modern day masterpiece and one of the greatest movies I have ever had the privilege of seeing.
It's not every day that you buy a movie and feel like you ripped off the movie distributor, but I feel that I owe more money to everyone involved in making this wonderful joyous work of art.
The movie begins in 1927 with a premier screening of a silent-picture (a silent film within a silent film? It's like Inception. A silent inception) being shown before an enthralled audience and after a standing ovation we see George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) come out to take a bow before he introduces his co-star and pet Jack (played by a Jack Russell named Uggie) and the two bask in the spotlight much to the chagrin of his female co-star who's impatiently waiting to be introduced backstage.
It's clear that Valentin is on top of the world as he poses for the paparazzi outside the cinema when young adoring fan, the brilliantly named Peppy Miller (played by the director's wife Berenice Bejo) is accidentally pushed onto the red carpet and into the spotlight. Peppy takes advantage of her 15 minutes of fame and plays up to the cameras and plants a kiss on Valentin's cheek. The newspapers the next day are covered by the photos of the kiss with the headline "Who's that girl?", something that Valentin's wife Doris (Penelope Ann Miller) doesn't take kindly too.
Peppy takes uses her new-found fame and manages, with the help of Valentin, to convince studio boss Al Zimmer (John Goodman) to give her a job as a an extra. George draws a beauty spot on Miller's face to help her stand out from the rest of the actress wannabes and we see her rise from extra to small roles such as 'the maid' to full-blown movie star in a fantastically innovative montage of stills of movie cast credits. She also grows closer to Valentin as we can see in a beautiful shot of outtakes in which the two mess up take after take of a ball scene because they can't stop dancing together, a scene alone which deserved the Oscar that the movie won. However there's something on the horizon that threatens to ruin the friendship between Peppy and Valentin and change the whole movie industry as they know it- the advent of sound.
Valentin upon being first being shown a talky picture from Zimmer completely laughs it off as just a fad (something I currently think about 3D movies. I hope I'm not wrong like Valentin was). Peppy Miller on the other hand is more open to the idea of non-silent films and her first talking movie Beauty Spot trounces Valentin's money-sucking silent epic folly in box office gates. Al Zimmer ends production on silent movies and whilst Peppy Miller is pushed into super stardom George Valentin is put out to pasture and in a downward spiral that leaves him penniless and divorced with just his pet Jack and loyal chauffeur Clifton (James Cromwell) standing by his side.
The Artist reminded me of why I fell in love with movies and the magic that cinema is capable of when it's not simply issuing remakes of classic films, dreary money-making sequels, soulless CGI flicks or rebooting a popular comic book franchise for the umpteenth time. Had I not seen this movie and had it rekindle my love of cinema then this blog wouldn't exist and my crazy idea to watch a film a day wouldn't have been born. It's a picture so full of imagination and wonder that it could only be made outside away from the conveyor belt Hollywood system. By taking away sound (there are intertiles with dialogue every now and then, but these was a concious effort to use these as sparingly as possible) director Michael Hazanvicius has to be creative on how to tell his story and how to make us feel for our characters.
He's aided in that by a pair of sensational actors. While it could have been simply nepotism giving a big role to his wife the gorgeous Bejo more than proves that she landed the role pure merit and both her and Dujardin have superb chemistry and convey emotions so well with facial expressions alone that it's incredibly easy to imagine that they would have been huge hits if they had been silent actors in the 1920's. Cromwell and Goodman are also great psychical actors and fit their roles to a tee and everybody is almost outdone by Uggie the Jack Russell. When The Artist came out there were calls for the Academy to make a special award for the dog and while that never came to pass there now is a separate award show for animals in movies and Uggie now has his very own star on the Hollywood walk of fame, complete with paw print.
The acting as mentioned is great, but Hazanvicius has a few tricks up his sleeve. I've already touched up the outtakes scene and cast credits montage, but there is a terrific use of sound in a dream sequence and a delightful scene where Bejo playfully acts with a dinner jacket. Hazanvicius also takes advantage of the silent picture medium by using an intertiles as an incredibly tense, cruel cliffhanger near the film's climax. The one word on that tile "Bang!" might by favourite movie moment in years, although the film's feel-good ending sequence rivals that and left me grinning ear-to-ear, making me want to stand up and give it a one-person standing ovation.
There are also little references to movies of the era for movie buffs. indeed Valentin's name is only one letter off 'Valentino', and his decent from movie star is similar to the fate that fell upon Douglas Fairbanks. Peppy even says 'I want to be alone' at one point echoing Greta Garbo, who like Peppy, was one of the lucky silent era movie stars who was able to move into talking pictures. The plot also has similarities to Singing in the Rain and A Star is Born and the film as a whole seems like a love letter to Hollywood's golden era, silent movies and MGM musicals.
Yes, it's black-and-white, yes it's a silent picture, but I'd urge everyone to watch this film of pure cinema perfection, if only for the cute dog. A modern day masterpiece and one of the greatest movies I have ever had the privilege of seeing.
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