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Sean O'Connell full bio of Sean O'Connell At a time when legends of the field -- James Cameron, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg -- are acknowledging the future by experimenting with 3D technology, Michel Hazanavicius reverses gears to embrace the past. In The Artist, he has crafted a black-and-white, two-dimensional and largely silent comedy that's unlike anything modern audiences will find outside of Turner Classic Movies. And it just might be the best movie you'll see all year.
It's undoubtedly one of the most entertaining films released in 2011. There's a reason Hazanavicius' crowd-pleasing ode to Golden Age Hollywood picks up audience awards at virtually every festival it plays.
The secret to this riches-to-rags storyline is a consistently lighthearted tone, even as Hazanavicius subtly weaves in such unsettling notions of unemployment, depression, divorce, suicide and -- worst of all, from Hollywood's standpoint -- unpopularity. Never mistake The Artist for cheap nostalgia, though. Hazanavicius merely employs old gimmicks to spruce up a surprisingly contemporary fable of a dedicated, productive employee being squeezed out of his chosen industry by technological advances.
The business is, in this case, show business, and in 1927 Hollywood, few stars shone brighter than George Valentin (international superstar Jean Dujardin). Fresh off his latest hit, Valentin is introduced by longtime producer Al Zimmer (John Goodman) to a test reel of audio cinema, or "the talkies." Valentin laughs it off, even though we immediately recognize that the industry already has passed him by.As one star tumbles, another ascends. Valentin's lovely co-star, Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), has the right face and voice for cinema's next stage. She lucks onto the set of the latest Valentin smash as a background player and never looks back. So as the once-mighty silent-film star sinks his last pennies into a passion project he hopes will keep him relevant, Miller rides one of those stereotypical meteoric rises to the town's top marquees. But can she stay there?
Those paying attention to the 2011 Oscar race are debating how high The Artist can climb. As one analyst tweeted, Hazanavicius's love letter to Old Hollywood should play to the Academy the way milk plays to kittens. It's a joyous romp for film aficionados, and you'll smile ear-to-ear from the opening scenes in a vintage movie theater to the rousing closing number on bustling movie set.
Yet Hazanavicius's reach extends deeper than delivering a purely pleasurable bauble. On one level, The Artist is a novelty act -- an attempt to resurrect a storytelling method from a bygone era. But everyone involved is so proficient -- and the cast so enthusiastic -- that it's virtually impossible not to be swept up in the ebullient joy permeating every scene. Dujardin's an impish rogue, adept at using every other tool other than his voice to convey a wealth of emotions. His Valentin's cut from the cloth of Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin (who's Hazanavicius's favorite director, and it shows). Co-stars Goodman, Bejo and James Cromwell understand how to overplay or underplay the material, respectively. And composer Ludovic Bource lays a lively bed of Ragtime carnival music on which Hazanavicius's ensemble can dance, mug, flirt and play.
"They don't make movies like they used to," has to be the number one complaint critics hear from disappointed audience members nowadays. The Artist proves that statement wrong.
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