The Artist -- the latest film by Michel Hazanavicius ("OSS 117: Nest of Spies")

I gather this is getting attention.

In some quarters. There hasn't been a big "silent" film in awhile.

(except for those of us who consider Guy Maddin big)

It's cute. Probably the more you know about film history / classic Hollywood, the less you will enjoy it.

There hasn't been a big "silent" film in awhile.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Q737XXTVL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

I don't know jack about Hazanavicius, but this film is being treated as a serious Oscar contender (picture, actor, director) everywhere I look.

waited in the rush line for two hours to see this at AFI fest and got turned away, which means i will NEVER SEE IT JUST OUT OF SPITE

(j/k)

The trailer makes this look awful.

Yeah, I saw the trailer at the cinema last weekend and it looked dreadful.

the trailer looks great imo alas it seems to show just about every scene in the movie in two minutes.

read raves of it from cannes, forgot abt it till now when i guess the US release is up and got harvey weinstein pushing it so more publicity

def want to see it, sounds fun

mebbe just due to ppl pushing silent film but read a few silent film historians and classic h'wood buffs who seem to be fans of the film as well so not sure abt the comment that the more you know abt classic hollywood the less you would like, would love to hear from folx here who get to see it (sadly, will probably be ages till i get a chance)

"Scarcely a patch on what Guy Maddin can do on a bad day"

http://slantmagazine.com/film/review/the-artist/5846

Was this movie made specifically to sell to Harvey Weinstein

What a non-entity this film was -- it's about nothing except its own cuteness.

I'd totally shag the lead though. He reminds me of Midge Ure.

Was this movie made specifically to sell to Harvey Weinstein

― da croupier

lol

the trailer looks great imo alas it seems to show just about every scene in the movie in two minutes.

― jed_, Thursday, November 17, 2011 7:08 AM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hah, this played before 'dragon tattoo' and noticed the same thing

this movie blew btw

Alfred, you'd just be fucking his teeth and that's risky.

At last, the entire love theme from Vertigo will be in an Oscar-winning film. So disgusting.

*SPOILER*

So when the lead says "wees pleasure!" at the end are we supposed to think the character had trouble adapting to talkies cuz he's a Frenchie?

i'd rather have my balls electrocuted with a car battery than watch this movie

Alex in bloomers

So when the lead says "wees pleasure!" at the end are we supposed to think the character had trouble adapting to talkies cuz he's a Frenchie?

I'd buy that, except at the premiere of "A Russian Affair" he's shown giving a brief radio interview. The movie came across as a mix of "A Star Is Born" and the Kenneth Anger version of John Gilbert's decline and fall.

There were silent-era filmmakers who regarded the advent of sound the way I do the current hype for 3D films (i.e., a pointless and expensive gimmick); I guess Valentin is supposed to represent them.

yeah except 3D is a pointless and expensive gimmick

Man, what a bunch of grinches you all are. Sure it's completely lightweight pastiche, but I thought this was really sweet and fun. (I think I'm also ilx's only Pink Martini fan, which is not really related at all, and yet in some way I think it is.)

My biggest problem with the movie is that on its own terms -- lightweight fun -- it's just not very diverting.

Herrmann's Vertigo theme does not fit at all with a "completely lightweight pastiche"

this looks so stupid I can't even

This movie was just a fucking bore. I looked at my watch five minutes in.

nice work by Malcolm McDowell's agent getting him billing for one minute onscreen.

... not to mention his salary for it

@BretEastonEllis
The Artist will win best picture, best director and best actor at the Oscars next year. Good night.
3 Dec

The movie came across as a mix of "A Star Is Born" and the Kenneth Anger version of John Gilbert's decline and fall.

So OTM. Who is Peppy Miller, then, though? Methinks Crawford possibly.

My gf's a serious silent movie fan and whomever upthread said the less you know about them, the more you'll like this may be right. I thought it was pretty good French homage to Hollywood silents which is interesting considering traditional French tetchiness wrt American culture especially in light of the Lumière brothers, Méliès, Pathé and Gaumont.

But if there's one thing you shouldn't mess with in this genre it's terseness. Why was this movie too long?

A lot of people I respect I enjoyed this movie but I kind of need one of them to give me twenty bucks in exchange for seeing it.

my sister just got back from this and is *apoplectic* with hatred for it.

this was my favorite movie of 2011 :(

haha -- didn't see that coming.

Whiney, you are ordered to spend the rest of 2012 watching authentic silent films via Ludovico treatment (see Malcolm McD connection)

Dreadful, twee horseshit
xxpost

It's cute. Probably the more you know about film history / classic Hollywood, the less you will enjoy it.

― Simon H., Wednesday, November 16, 2011 9:32 PM

Have to disagree - my partner's studying silent film postgrad (I ended up seeing about 40-odd silent films last year w/them) and they adored it. Admittedly, it was the only film made in 2011 we saw together, but I'm startled by the hatred for it here.

Gf and I agreed that this demonstrated that you can make a silent film in 2011, but not why you would.

Morb, I just got my Haxan DVD and Phantom Carriage blu-ray in the mail! :D

this looks super awful. guy maddin also sucks.

well, youre a mystery, Whiney.

Guy Maddin shows why you wd make 21st-c silents.

so you can use that "grainy" effect on imovie i guess

My taste in movies is kind of all over the place

guy maddin also sucks.

― judith, Sunday, January 8, 2012 2:30 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

sum1 had 2 b brave enuff 2 say it

morbs, you're not alone:

http://www.deadline.com/2012/01/not-everyone-loves-the-artist-kim-novak-feels-violated-by-use-of-vertigo-score/

(although ick at comparing it to rape)

This Oscar season has so far been tame in terms of bad-mouthing, and I don’t think I’ve heard a complaint quite like this one before. How many will recognize music from a film released in 1958?

WTF!?!?!

The deadline writers are a group of neurasthenic juiceboxes, but I was still shocked that that they are under the impression that the Vertigo score is obscure and long-forgotten.

Was it the same police officer both times?

Alfred, yr blogpost was you at your OTMost.

Thanks! I was going to revive this to post today's NYT story about Artist fatigue.

I like this less the more I think about it, but it did make my wife (who's never been particularly interested in old movies) want to see more silent films. (I see there's a Fatty Abuckle comedy screening next weekend...)

yeah, that's the one benefit I see out of this frenzy, even if it's only 3% of people who see The Artist. And I do have two friends who have seen WAY more silent film than I have -- one of them regularly curates silent series in NY and elsewhere -- who liked it.

If you like Dujardin in The Artist, I would suggest checking out John Gilbert flicks. The Fairbanks Sr., aspect was pretty clear, of course, but I think his character shows some Gilbert as well.

That home-projector right before the fire where they were, I think, using some Fairbanks Sr action clips w/ Dujardin spliced in nearly got me out of my seat to yell "Do THIS next time!"

Totally

I'm still miffed at how long and slow this was when, if anything, silents and early talkies are fast-paced with little or no slack

This is missing a reel but it was a real hoot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardelys_the_Magnificent

oh, I've seen some slow silent dramas.

I have too but it's not typical of the ones that did well in the 20's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Who_Gets_Slapped

I think I've only seen three other silents, so I can't speak to how it differs from films of that era, but it did seem like the The Artist dwelled on Valentin's down-and-out period for a really long time.

Like forever... Okay, okay, we get it. Tortured, etc...

the down-and-out theme is more closely an echo of What Price Hollwood? and the original A Star Is Born.

j, do you mind my asking what the other 3 were?

most encouraging ad on my Fbook page today:

"37 people like The Artist."

are they members of the Academy

j, do you mind my asking what the other 3 were?

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
The Gold Rush
Piccadilly

well, those are fine ones. I'm surprised you never went on a Keaton or Chaplin jag, tho.

saw this tonight didnt really have an opinion on it i guess it was cool that some1 made a movie that was built on references to classic adorable dog youtubes

Everytime I think I want to see this movie I see the trailer and realize I really, truly don't.

I haven't seen many silent movies, just two Clara Bow ones, "It" and "The Plastic Age", but I enjoyed them immensely. It's fun to see how much story you can actually tell without dialog.

My gf's a serious silent movie fan and whomever upthread said the less you know about them, the more you'll like this may be right. I thought it was pretty good French homage to Hollywood silents which is interesting considering traditional French tetchiness wrt American culture especially in light of the Lumière brothers, Méliès, Pathé and Gaumont.

Saw this last night and friend's first (jokey) reaction that this was about that tension, given that the actor is French and no one would really like to hear him spk bcz of his accent, as revealed in the final scene. I'd add his somewhat arty/pretentious silent film which flopped as a peculiar French product?

Other than that I read it as a man silenced (and silencing) himself from the world. Love the dream sequence and the scene where the policeman talks to him and he just can't hear. Wish there was more of that kind of thing (which would make it less of a silent film), more of play with(out) sound.

It started to flag as it carried his depression on, and you never really knew why the girl wanted to help him to the extent she did. Sure, he gave her a break...just felt underwritten.

the scene where the policeman talks to him and he just can't hear.

I didn't really get this scene. My take was that he was just overwhelmed by the policeman's inane chattering, his anti-talking stance was bleeding over into his real life, becoming a psychosis. Your interpretation would indicate some kind of mental slide as well, either way it felt too strong or too sudden. The dream sequence worked better because it was a dream - and because the sound elucidated, whereas the silence in the policeman scene only worked to obscure.

I agree it was weirdly placed and not that easy to read - but I think at that was the moment where his silencing in more ways than one became apparent (the dream was the beginning, an anxiety takig over but still an anxiety).

And bcz there weren't enough of these scenes its quite hard to make much out of it. Think the film would have been improved if it played about with using sound (or a lack of) to give na insight to his state of mind. An idea that wasn't carried through for the easier to tell storyline, which is more 'charming'.

I'd add his somewhat arty/pretentious silent film which flopped as a peculiar French product?

Was his film supposed to be arty/pretentious? It looked like a standard swashbuckler/adventure tale to me. I thought the only reason it failed was b/c it was a silent film in the early '30s.

Maybe more portentous than pretentious.

At least compared to the whipped cream delight that is The Artist.

Fair enough.

Arty/Pretentious in a 30s way (as I imagine): bloated. Portentous good too.

This is a nice blog post on post-artist recommends.

I'm pretty sure the last Hollywood silent features were produced in 1929

(the 2 Chaplins after that where he plays The Tramp are not really silent)

lol wasn't that an 'indepedent' production? He ws signing a lot of cheques...

'independent' I mean, I always say indie hence my 15th spelling mistake since I started posting in this thread.

One thing I will say about The Artist is that it was much better than the OSS 117 movie I tried to watch.

Anybody read Denby's analysis of silent film acting?

I put it on the silent film thread (I think) -- of course I haven't had time to read it.

i'm surprised this thread is so short!

i just saw this, i have to give it a bit of credit for winning over 2012 audiences as a silent film, but it just felt so much like a well-crafted ~historical experience~ for cinema-goers - like a tudor reconstruction or something - and not a particularly interesting or attention-holding film. so many cute touches but not one character you really cared about. george started off as a sleaze and got less sympathetic as he declined: yet another film in which a brilliant young woman inexplicably wastes her time on a sadsack dude's ego because he apparently can't lift a finger to help himself. his wife had the right idea in chucking him out.

weird ending, i thought it was building towards a conclusion of george swallowing his pride and finding his literal voice but...silent tapdancing? was that a thing that existed? it's like they couldn't think of any other way for there to be a happy ending so just veered off-piste historically. or was it a short-lived genre between talkies and musicals? in which case it's bizarre to rescue george by sending him down another dead end.

i liked the dog though! and bérénice bejo's performance was tremendous physically, i thought - that coltish unselfconsciousness x swagger really marked peppy's character out, totally imbued with a raw confidence that she's not even fully aware of.

I agree w/whoever said that the only time Dujardin gets the opportunity to really act is when he and Bejo are filming their first movie together, and he is too distracted by her to perform his part properly.

Was the tap dancing meant to be silent in the movie in the movie, though? I assumed it was just silent to us. Not that this makes it any better really.

no, the sound era has already begun at that point, lex musta been texting.

so is the Dujardin character SUPPOSED to be French or not? Has Hazmatvicious addressed this?

Like maybe he was afraid of talkies b/c of his accent? That actually led to ruin for some silent stars, didn't it?
Was most movie tapping dubbed? When did that start?
At any rate, I don't think the dancing scene really resembled a typical early movie musical? I guess it doesn't matter?
This movie didn't seem interesting enough to think about after it was over.

as mentioned, he gives a radio interview at the premiere.

Few scenes in this movie resembled many early movies.

Oh right. I forgot about that (in the movie and in the thread).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H46uf5-Way0&feature=player_embedded
Josephine Baker in La revue des revues (1927), made and released to theaters as a silent film. However, I don't know enough about silent film or early musicals to know how common "silent musicals" were, or if tapdance was featured in these films.

To me the dancing sequence looked like a rehearsal for a Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers dance scene. Perhaps this is a reference to that apocryphal assessment of Astaire as "Can't act. Can't sing. Balding. Can dance a little."

There are silent movies with dance sequences in them but I thought lex was asking about silent tap dancing in a sound movie. I don't know about it.
Yeah, to me the dance sequence looked more like scenes from later musicals, if anything.

Was the tap dancing meant to be silent in the movie in the movie, though?

oh i meant non-speaking rather than silent, i guess

i thought it was gonna lead into his transition to musicals but...no speech

I love the state of Tennessee...no Speech.

so is the Dujardin character SUPPOSED to be French or not? Has Hazmatvicious addressed this?

Fairly clear he ws meant to be French which ws the joke - his French accent wsn't going to work w/sound era audiences.

This ws before Ins Closeau and Depardieu changed the game, of course.

I thought the endng ws clear -- they were going to be marketed as a musical double act in an Astaire-Rogers mould w/Bejo as the lead doing most of the talking (I guess she is assumed to be English).

Oh yeah forgot to say how the sd/track irritated me -- don't care this won Oscars, but that one for best score is funny.

Agree with Lex's take for the most part. And was similarly confused about the dancing at the end. Maybe he gets novelty type cameo work in talkies as the guy in the dance scene who steals the show or something?

Liked some of it a great deal. Liked the two cops, assistant coach Dauber, who for some reason can't be heard by our guy, and George Calamari from One Crazy Summer, who saves the prideful fool from smoke inhalation death.

Fairly clear he ws meant to be French which ws the joke - his French accent wsn't going to work w/sound era audiences.

ummmm, you heard of Maurice Chevalier? A huge Paramount star in the late '20s and early '30s, as French as they come.

We don't hear Valentin speak until the last scene! What other evidence is there that he's French?

He's clearly meant to be as big a star as ever in the last scene.

How fitting that his nationality is vague – it's in keeping with the rest of this vaporous movie.

assistant coach Dauber

! (didn't realize that was him)

What other evidence is there that he's French?

The line "No one wants to hear me speak" hints at it.

chevalier not to mention charles boyer etc etc

ummmm, you heard of Maurice Chevalier? A huge Paramount star in the late '20s and early '30s, as French as they come.

And in every English-language movie I've seen him in, he's always played a European, whose heavy accent is part of his overall persona. Maybe Valentin didn't want to get stereotyped into these roles?

I thought the ending was an indication that he successfully transitioned to sound films through musicals, in which his ability to speak was not initially that important, but not that he would never have to speak. His one spoken line at the end is supposed to indicate that he has overcome his fear or psychological block or whatever it was.
I guess we're not really supposed to care or form an opinion about whether he is French, why he feared sound movies, the meaning of overcoming that fear, etc.

There were many European accented stars of early sound cinema weren't there. As long as he could speak English pretty well which it is apparent he could what would be his basis for thinking his accent was unacceptable? He seemed pretty confident on that radio interview. It just seemed like a personal hang up, whether related to his (possible) French accent or not.

This was fun.

Fairly clear he ws meant to be French which ws the joke - his French accent wsn't going to work w/sound era audiences.

ummmm, you heard of Maurice Chevalier? A huge Paramount star in the late '20s and early '30s, as French as they come.

We don't hear Valentin speak until the last scene! What other evidence is there that he's French?

He's clearly meant to be as big a star as ever in the last scene.

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 1 March 2012 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What 'evidence' do you need - it was kinda jokey. I think he did 'say' earlier that audiences wouldn't want to hear him so that is what he meant.

Don't know Chevalier -- thinking about early representations of people from diff countres (more Chinese ppl than anyone from the West) and an unexamined reluctance I perceive from audiences to anyone talking 'funny' leading to a mixed piture.

Not that there was enough about that. In fact there wasn't enough of anything -- Bejo was really underwritten, or assumed to have 'star' quality and a nice person who helps back, but seems a sideshow in one man's (increasingly tedious) descent. They should have cut some of that to add characterisation and complexity.

Real shame that we never had a thread about A Separation. Bit of a regret to not start a thread at the time.

It annoys me there are only a handful of posts (in a general thread about Iranian films) to a film so much finer than this.

he did 'say' earlier that audiences wouldn't want to hear him so that is what he meant.

I don't know what he meant. Just because the actor is French and sez "WEEZ PLEAZHURE" at the end doesn't mean the character is French, any more than all the characters in Frears' Dangerous Liaisons were American or British.

I don't think it's too late to start a thread about A Separation. It's still playing where I live, and surely the Oscar win will inspire more people to check it out.

or you could just put it in the Iranian film thread.

Just because the actor is French and sez "WEEZ PLEAZHURE" at the end doesn't mean the character is French

If the character was meant to be American or British, don't you think Dujardin could have mustered up an accent for that one measly line?

well, Robert Redford didn't muster up a Brit accent for the whole of Out of Africa

so you guys are saying Meryl Streep should have played this part.

Jaymc - may start if I borrow the DVD for a re-watch, happy if someone else does it.

he did 'say' earlier that audiences wouldn't want to hear him so that is what he meant.

I don't know what he meant. Just because the actor is French and sez "WEEZ PLEAZHURE" at the end doesn't mean the character is French, any more than all the characters in Frears' Dangerous Liaisons were American or British.

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Friday, 2 March 2012 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That follows from how thin this film is...may not even be the correct interpretation, sure.

Although comparing it to Dangerous Liaisons isn't the same thing at all.

Literally saw this by accident last night--my friend and I bought tickets for The Iron Lady, walked into the wrong theatre, sat through 15 minutes of coming attractions, and by then it was too late to switch theatres. I had no intention of seeing it otherwise. Not surprising then that I more or less hated it. I have no protective feelings toward silent films whatsoever, but boy, is this ever simplistic.

I didn't see any real indication that he was meant to be French or that his fear was related to a fear of being stereotyped. It didn't seem like the type of movie to be about those sorts of issues. I don't know that there was meant to be a concrete or logical reason for his fear-if there was, why be so vague about it and make it seem more like a neurotic phobia?
I don't understand what you mean about a French accent not working with sound audiences being a "joke" anyway. Do you mean when we finally hear his accent we are supposed to realize the reason for his reluctance and it's some kind of punchline? Or we're supposed to get the "joke" all along?The movie seemed like of toneless to me, so maybe that's why I don't get it?

And I agree A Separation is much better, why not start a thread if you want to.

Having watched Flesh and the Devil last night, I'm not prepared to reexamine my reaction to this thing.

hey, at least the Oscars finally got non-cineastes to notice Iran, finally.

S & D: Iranian film

Besides the incongruity (read pointlessness) of the Vertigo theme cited above, what is a recreation of Citizen Kane's dinner-table sequence doing in a tribute to silent films? Confusing.

breakfast table?

I think it's permissible to eat breakfast at the dinner table...but yes, come to think of it, you're right.

OK. I watched this for the first time over the weekend. Apart from the audacity of making a silent film about the advent of talkies, the big weakness was that, I order to follow the necessary conventions of silent film, the entire movie was emptied of any hint or vestige of nuance or subtlety in the plot or characters. And this won a Best Picture Award?!

yes, that quality clinched it.

this was amazing stfu every one of you i hate you all so much

OSS is an amazing series, The Artist is by far the lesser work.

Couldnt remember berenice bejo's name but fyi an image search for "french actress" is as good a way as there is to forget whatever it was you were meant to be doing this evening