Help yourself

Rating: 3/10 (16 June 2012)

Last night I finally saw "The Artist" and after the easy digestion of this lite soufflé, here is what I typed: the concession of the main award from the American film industry to a French motion picture as best production of 2011 should not be seen as a cordial action whereby a national film form (specifically, American cinema in general) recognizes the art and skill of a foreign film form, but rather as the assumption by certain sector of French filmmakers (among them M. Michel Hazanavicius, director and writer –surely not "author", as Truffaut and Rohmer would claim– of "The Artist") of the way Hollywood makes, feels and shoots films, even if Oliver Stone says (as he told me in an interview) that "Hollywood" is only a construct. After heatedly arguing with the American negotiators to reach a version of the GATT acceptable to both Europeans and Americans (in which the memories of Beaumarchais, the French playwright, and British queen Anne were evoked, as Europeans defended their notion of copyright), it was agreed that film is something more than entertainment, so funds and incentives were guaranteed to continue the European production of motion pictures that express national cultures, and counteract the slow transformation of spectators into exclusive consumers of American products (thanks to monopoly), while their brains become smaller, very much in the way of the incredible shrinking man, with the small difference that as he got smaller his cosmic conscience grew. I think that the American negotiators accepted the deal because they knew that in the end many filmmakers from all over the world would end up making movies "a la Hollywood", in accordance with the so-called zero degree style (also ambiguously termed "classic representational model"), as evidenced by "The Artist" and "Buried" from Spain, "Night Watch" from Russia, and "Acquaria" from Brazil. Of course every viewer will experience something different when watching "The Artist". For me, Mr. Hazanavicius, a former publicist with no outstanding work in his previous filmography, made a tiresome and innocuous movie. Tiresome because its predictable and clichéd story has been told a dozen of times, and innocuous because it is lightweight, because it is not in anyone's way, it is just there, a pretty centerpiece. It is possible that he did not pretend to make a masterpiece. I do not know his intentions, but because the film has been exaggeratedly praised it becomes more obvious that nothing was done that had been not already tried, tested and found effective: above anything, to narrate in black and white with images and inter-titles, and to use musical paraphrases to supply depth (which, to be honest, this story does not need, for everything is intentionally superficial). It is truly a merit that Hazanavicius has seen so many Hollywood movies, because he knows which are the best resources to evoke a time and a way of making films, contrary to many new filmmakers who are satisfied with Disney, "Star Wars", "The Matrix", "The Lord of the Rings", and films by some weird director recommended by one of their teachers (while they refuse to see Ford's "Stagecoach") An rehash of "A Star is Born", Hazanavicius' film mixes a bit from "Swing Time" with many other film quotations that the Hollywood specialists will recognize, and a climax strangely edited to the cue that Bernard Herrmann wrote for "Vertigo" (curiously titled in French by the composer, as "Scène d'amour"). We will have to wait for Michel Hazanavicius' future films to see what is behind this lustrous façade, bathed with 107 awards! But who cares the world is crazy, full of nostalgia, covered with the gimmicks of the old Californian movies. If you take it like that, then you can enjoy "The Artist", a little pill that is easily swallowed, without fatal consequences.