Portrait of The Artist

This year my husband and I are making a concerted effort to see the major Oscar-nominated films BEFORE the Academy Awards are presented.  There is nothing more boring than watching the Oscars when you have not seen the movies that are walking away with all the statues.  We have been caught embarrassingly short during years when such important films as Schindler’s List and Slumdog Millionnaire were big winners.  For the record, we did see Schindler’s List eventually, but knowing how life-altering it would be, we waited until we were able to schedule an afternoon off from work to view it together during daylight.

There are some movies where you know in the moment that you have just seen that year’s Oscar performance.  I felt this way about Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice (she spoke German with a Polish accent, for God’s sake!), Adrian Brody in the Pianist (the Chopin G-minor Ballade scene haunts me still), Tom Hanks  in Forest Gump AND Philadelphia, and especially Colin Firth in The King’s Speech.   

Tonight we saw The Artist.  I am predicting that Jean Dujardin will win the Best Actor award hands down.  It was a tour de force performance that stands above anything else I’ve seen this year.  As much as I love Gary Oldman—I believe he is one of the greatest living actors—I think his performance in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is far from his most remarkable performance.  I also love George Clooney (what female with a pulse doesn’t?), and I reserve the right to amend my opinion once I have seen him in The Descendents next week. 

I expected to like Jean Dujardin in this film.  His run as George Valentin has been much hyped in the press.  I watched him win his Golden Globe.  I have heard him speak, barely, in English.  All of this served to elevate my impression of his performance.  It was deeply nuanced, relying on a full range of acting (and dancing) skills yet not a single word for a full hour and forty minutes.  As Holly Hunter showed us in The Piano, actors who don’t have dialogue to rely upon tend to reveal far more of their craft.  His face ran the gamut from a man at the top of his game to one at the end of his rope.  This performance is good enough to be a top contender in any Oscar class, but will definitely win in a year when they had to use Brad Pitt’s performance in Money Ball to round out the five nominations.

There are few things I find as satisfying as a really good movie.  I found The Artist to be an incredibly fun and original story, capturing the transition of classic Hollywood from silent pictures to talkies.  As collateral damage, George Valentin fades away, losing his “voice” as an artist, and his own self-image in the process.  These are dramatized with classy sight gags and artsy use of sound (the talkies are represented in the silent movie format by adding lyrics in the background score).   One of the greatest moments in the film is his own nightmare, when the ambient sounds become deafening and encircle him, while he himself tries in vain to speak.

In a futile attempt to keep his career and craft alive, he bucks the studio, stubbornly writing, producing, and directing his own silent picture.  Its final scene, showing the silent star sinking hopelessly to his death, was one of the more tragic moments on film--capturing metaphorically his plight as Hollywood road kill.  We mourn not only for the man and others like him who are unable to transition to talkies, but also for the loss of this beautiful art form.   Underscoring the drama surrounding the artist’s refusal (or is it inability?) to transition to the new film technology is Valentin’s long suffering wife, played dryly by Penelope Ann Miller.  As she leaves George, she vents her frustration with their marriage by demanding:  “Why won’t you talk?”   Even this is cleverly tied up at the end.

When we purchased our tickets for the film, the hipster guy in the ticket booth said he did not like this film at all.  Like the early silent films, there was much about The Artist that was overly dramatic and patently unrealistic.  I saw a few glaring flaws, most particularly the poor editing that had Peppy Miller holding her clutch, then not, then holding it again in her very first scene.   If I ever see this film again, I will likely count the times that her “beauty spot” moves from the right side of her face to the left.  But all of this did not diminish my joy at being taken on a fresh and original journey to a simpler time.  As a mostly silent film, it speaks volumes. 

 

My love for The Artist notwithstanding, and perhaps for sentimental reasons, I'll be pulling for Woody Allen to snag Best Original Screenplay for his beautiful "Midnight in Paris"--a small movie that happened to push all my fantasy buttons.  As for which film will take best picture, I’ll give The Artist 50:50 odds against the beautifully poignant film The Help. 

Tomorrow's blog:  A Moment for Gordon