Much as I'd like to be able to protest otherwise, I'm not actually much of an artistic, cultured person; I'm more...Northern. I do read a lot, and I've been known to enter a theatre, and I like Shakespeare, but I also love Harry Potter, consider The Full Monty one of the best films ever made and rarely wear anything besides jeans and a t-shirt. Thus, I only went to see The Artist because I thought I SHOULD, rather than because I actually WANTED to. It's been nominated for a bunch of Oscars, everyone's talking about it, it's a modern classic, blah, blah, blah. Silent movies are way past old - nobody ventures away from ovens to cook over a fire do they? So why go back to an outdated method of movie-making?
And here's where I eat my words.
Whilst I didn't think that The Artist was perfect, the fact that it was silent was virtually irrelevant - you barely noticed it, and when you did it was in a deliberate, clever sort of way. Even the plot appeals to the modern viewer -- set in the late 1920s, silent movies are starting to fade out of fashion as the new-fangled Talkies begin to take over Hollywood. George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), a silent-movie megastar, refuses to adapt with the times, and falls from grace in a frankly spectacular fashion through his refusal to let go of the 'artistic' silent movies and make way for the 'puppetry' of Talkies. As he falls, his biggest fan Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) rises - from an extra in a Valentin picture to Hollywood's sweetheart, the speed of her progress matched only by that of George's descent.
Whilst the plot got a bit laborious towards the end, the artistry with which the film has been made is extraordinary. Real love and devotion has gone into this movie, and it's easy to see. The performances are all exemplary, the settings are wonderfully nostalgic and the atmosphere is gloriously old-fashioned. The Artist is - more than anything - an homage to the past. I'm far from a connoiseur of old movies, but even I could see the Errol Flynn in Jean Dujardin's laugh, the Gene Kelly in his tap-dancing and the Audrey Hepburn in Berenice Bejo's coy smiles.
I think this film is remarkable because it's so different, rather than because it's particularly groundbreaking. But there's nothing wrong with that, and I'd thoroughly recommend The Artist to anyone, however dubious they are.
