You can almost hear the beauty.By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee"
The Artist is about film as we think we know it from 1927 through the introduction of sound. "Think" because there is so much more than a riches to rags story inspired by those ominous talkies. Director/writer Michael Hazanavicus creates a nostalgic world, as Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese do with Midnight in Paris and Hugo, that captures the joy of early filmmaking in a film that obviously adores films in general.
Like Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Rudolph Valentino, George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is at the top of his romantic film game when he begins to feel the heat of the talkies. He's athletic, has a monumental smile, and even the good fortune to befriend an emerging talking star, Peppy Miller (Berenice Berjo), who serves as a metaphor for change and a real side of the usually dramatic George. By the way, Dujardin won the acting prize at Cannes, and no wonder.
The exquisite beauty of The Artist lies in the simple contrasts of black and white, light and dark, the kind of chiaroscuro Caravaggio would have loved. That lighting emphasizes the almost childlike aura of silent movies with their over-the-top performances and enchanting set design. Almost as if the emergence of talkies would steal the innocence from the light.
Although The Artist is one of the best films of 2011, it is also a memorable introduction to the magic of silence, where only body language, sets, and camera can communicate the richness of humanity. See this one, not hear it, and be transported in film history.
John DeSando co-hosts WCBE 90.5's It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee, which can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain He is also a film critic for Fox 28. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com