Courage and change

Rating: Null/10 (29 October 2011)

The film is very well done and that was the main point here: to make a silent movie in 2011 was a real challenge. And yes a silent movie today can still be possible even if the antics of the old silent films are no longer possible. The film chose the 1927-1932 period in Hollywood when the cinema moved from silent movies to talkies. Hence it was natural to give us a completely silent universe, though entirely musical.
Yet the film seems to be thought slightly differently. All the actors spoke though silently but their lip movements must have been perfectly calculated since today quite a few people do read lips, and not only deaf people, just people who like the cinema and TV series. After all they all followed the advice of Ronald Reagan: "Read my lips!" But the film is fascinating because it considers a change in society and in the film industry that could have meant the end of it, its death and that meant nevertheless the death of a whole generation of actors and technicians, the death of a whole medium, the silent film. And when an industry or an industrial branch dies there are casualties along the way because some people cannot follow, cannot recycle themselves and they have to get out of the way since the show must go on.
The trick used here is that the main silent film star is going to find a new dimension by using one of his talents that is visual more than linguistic, dancing. We can think of some actors who actually did that in that period. We all think of Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers or even Gene Kelly. But others like Charlie Chaplin went through always by using the visual side of the cinema at least as much as the talking side of the new talkies. And they discovered then that language in a very visual treatment of a theme can become a multiplying factor that energized and strengthened the film.
By centering the film here on a couple of actor and actress, the actor a famous silent film star and the actress an upstart cinema dancer who can have a big career because she can speak in front of the camera, their relationship and their drama that could have been a tragedy, it makes the change a lot more human than it is in textbooks.
The trick of this film though is the use of a dog as a full actor who just needs to speak to be human, but that dog is a central character in the plot. That shows how a film can revolve on a voiceless, speechless character who can be crucial though unable to say a word. We accept it from a dog, but we have some difficulty accepting it from a man. The novelty of some technical improvement becomes a fad at once and no one can stop or reverse that evolution.
The modern world where a major invention happens always faster and today in a few years, pretty soon in a few months, is a cruel world for human beings who are not flexible and adaptable enough to change along with the world. But be sure of one thing: the world will go on changing and always faster. So maybe we should set the emphasis in our societies on that necessity to be flexible; adaptable and to accept change as natural and not as a disturbance. This is all the more difficult in a society where pensioners and senior citizens become more and more important in proportion, though some of them might be more flexible than some young wolves of upstart economy or upstart politics.
That film is a great lesson in courage in front of change and crisis at critical times in the life of humanity, and today is such a critical time.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU