Note-perfect love letter to the silent era

Rating: 9/10 (18 January 2012)

George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is one of the biggest stars in Hollywoodland. His latest picture looks set to be a commercial success after he charms the audience after a screening with his on and off- screen sidekick dog Jack. Afterwards, as the press surge around him, a screaming fan, Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) drops her purse and finds herself alongside George, who grabs her and smiles for the camera. She causes a sensation in the press and lands a small dancing role in George's next film. But with the emergence of the talkies looming, George finds his role as Hollywoodland's favourite star threatened, and Peppy slowly rises and becomes a star in her own right. Unable to find work as a talking film star, George slides into infamy, but finds his path repeatedly crossing with Peppy's.
The emergence of the 'talkies' is one the biggest events in cinema history. Cinema giants found themselves pushed out of the business if they didn't have the right voice, and had to make way for a new set of stars. Very few actors survived the transformation, with the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo managing to scrape through. This has been depicted on screen before, most notably in two very different masterpieces - Billy Wilder's homage-filled noir Sunset Boulevard (1950), and Stanley Donen's iconic musical Singin' in the Rain (1952). While the latter depicted an ageing former silent star verging on madness, and the latter a production company making the difficult transition from silent movies to musicals, what The Artist has going for it is that it's shot and acted exactly like a silent movie, and does so with such dedication and love that it transports you back to the time where you feel as if you're witnessing this change first hand.
It would be easy to make a mockery of silent movies. As many greats as the era produced, they mainly consist of over-the-top acting, unrealistic sets and overly romantic attitudes (I said mainly, I'm not referring to the works of Murnau, Lang and Dreyer, but mainly the work that came out of Hollywood). But they were simple, passionate and often theatrical, and the works of Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton are still some of the greatest comedies ever made. Director Michel Hazanavicius is clearly in love with them, and even shot the film in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, which allows the actors to dominate the screen. It is also littered with sly winks to the era and to the likes of Mary Pickford, who was possibly the biggest actress of the era, and Douglas Fairbanks (a scene from his The Mark of Zorro (1920) is shown as a Valentin movie, with Valentin incorporated into the close-up shots).
The casting is a stroke of genius. Dujardin has such a perfect cinematic face that it is as if he was made for silent cinema. He simply doesn't need to speak, he has the ability to generate an emotion with an eyebrow movement, and has possibly the greatest screen moustache for many a year. If the Academy fails to recognise his performance here, I'll eat my own face, and I hope he goes on to bigger and better things. Bejo is not nearly as impressive, but charms her way through the film and is perfectly believable in her role. She has real chemistry with Dujardin, and the scene in which she has a small role dancing with Valentin, who keeps fluffing his actions because he is enamoured by Peppy, is truly beautiful. It is one of the most genuine and achingly romantic scenes I've seen in the cinema.
It is too early to call it a masterpiece, but it is truly a stunning film and the hype is well justified. But I did leave wondering if I had just witnessed the death of cinema. Are we so devoid of ideas that we have reverted back to where we started? Well, no, but it did make me think. Cinema has come full circle, and I am now concerned that there is nothing else left to explore. With the emergence of 3-D, old classics such as Star Wars (1977) and Jurassic Park (1993) are being re-released into cinemas. Do we now have to look back for inspiration, rather than forward into the unknown? Perhaps people have wondered this in the past, only to then witness cinematic landmarks that have pushed the medium forward. I'm most likely, and hopefully, wrong, but for now I'll enjoy The Artist for what it is - a love letter to a time in cinema often neglected by the masses - and a brilliant one at that.
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