The Artist (2011) directed by Michel Hazanavicius from France

I suppose on the whole this film isn't really meant for odd folks such as myself who regularly watch silent films although there are certainly a number of things sprinkled throughout the film to delight fans of film history -- the use of historical theatre locations, Douglas Fairbanks footage of his Zorro films, the use of Mary Pickford's actual bed in Peppy Miller's house, George Valentin dressed up as the criminal mastermind from the Fantomas series of films -- are just a few of the gems to be found. Yet despite these winks for the film nerds the film takes careful pains to evoke the feeling and energy of that particular time in film history and not to waste energy wallowing in the actual history of a period that the more typical film-goer would know much of or even care much about.

To that end the film's characters are a sort of grand, sweeping pastiche of the general feeling and knowledge that most people tend to reactively create when the their thoughts turn to the silent cinema and those early days of film. Our lead character is George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) a paper-thinly disguised analogue for Douglas Fairbanks although there's a lot of Rudolf Valentino in his character if you pay attention to the smaller details. He's the biggest star in the world and he knows it, but his fall from grace is fast and profoundly harsh as the period of talkies sweeps him away like so much dust. His lead partner is Miss Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) a character supposedly heavily based on Gloria Swanson but really I get more of a Clara Bow vibe from her due to her rambunctious go-getter personality sans of course all of Clara's horribly tragic personal background issues. She's the star on the rise who quickly adapts to the new format involving sound and her rise is as quick as Valentin's fall. Thrown into the mix is Al Zimmer (John Goodman) as that sort of uber DeMille-ish ideal of an angry, cigar chomping director and the at times far too tall James Cromwell as Clifton, George's ever faithful chauffeur/butler who would do anything for him. Thus the film has created a cast that is at once familiar and somewhat expected from both the knowledgeable and the ignorant but with the ability to forge its own course unfettered by history.

Playing into people's expectations of the s+yle of the times the film smartly has its actors depict every action and reaction in a very broad and overly animated fashion. Although this was not always the done and there were more than enough actors and director who delivered a more subtle approach in those days, it certainly was a common device and one in which the actors take to like ducks to water in quite a delightful fashion thoroughly allowing the audience to fall in love with their characters. Dean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo really deliver an outstanding performance with their ability to deliver such initially hammy performances, but ones which are tinged with powerfully unspoken (or in this case unwritten) feelings of love, desire and sadness. What I really enjoyed was how the characters progressed and changed as the film moves ever onward into the period of talking pictures. It wasn't just the natural progression of the characters' development, but how their very body language and acting s+yle became increasingly more mature and subtle as things got increasingly emotional and tragic. The initial overly animated acting slowly gives way to a decidedly more mature approach as the film progresses as the herky-jerky motions and emotions give sway to prolonged moments of tragic and quiet clarity as reflected in the smallest of motions or quiet often in the eyes of the actors.

This is not to say all the early shots are nothing but comedic mugging, far from it. One of my favorite scenes in the film is when Peppy Miller first breaks into movies with small bit roles and sneaks into the dressing room of her idol George Valentin and ends up cuddling with his coat on the coat rack as she mimes a scene in which "George" devilishly makes advances upon her. George arrives and interrupts her private fantasy and although initially embarrassed, when she looks up at him just over his shoulder is a big poster from an earlier film of his entitled something along the lines of "He Instantly Captured My Heart" and just as instantly you can see the passion and love in the eyes of Peppy. But as George looks back at her during this moment with his character initially not making much of it, the camera slowly shifts just to the right causing her head to be framed by a round lit mirror in the background giving her an angelic halo causing her to seemingly glow and George immediately gives pause and realizes something very special and profound is occurring between the two of them. Really gorgeous stuff and there are little subtle moments like this sprinkled throughout the film from the director that impressed me a great deal.

But as the film progresses and charts the rise of Peppy's career from low bit role actress to headlining star juxtaposed with George's dismissal and refusal to deal with the oncoming popularity of sound pictures and his quick and dramatic fall from grace as he sinks all of his money into a big budget and oddly tragic jungle picture, the film seems to lose its focus a bit. The film ends up spending so much time kicking George when he's down over and over again that it becomes almost farcical as you wonder what new demeaning level of existence could the writers possibly have in store for him? How could people forget the most popular actor in the world in just a couple of years because he made one bad picture? You never really understand why he's so distant from his actual wife -- although her persistence in drawing on any picture of him she can find is an amusing running joke -- and the emotional bond between the protagonists just seems to get abandoned for such a long time that when it comes around again I found myself unsure as to what the nature of their relationship was. Lovers? Dear Friends? Father/Daughter bond? I dunno. The film also ends up striving to be such a vehicle for Jean Dujardin to demonstrate his abilities to emote that it goes perhaps a wee bit too dark with the only way out apparently is via a cheap inter-title joke in order to change the tempo of the film in a very abrupt albeit happy manner.

But despite these bumps along the road I must admit that I did enjoy the hell out of the picture and was mighty impressed with all the actors involved with the leads obviously delivering rather stunning performances. Yes I did mentally nitpick over the fact that there wasn't any color in the films (silent films were largely tinted), the fact that the happily sparse inter-title cards were sadly lacking in their use of excessive dashes as uber ellipses of their day, and that their posters for sound films stated it as "talking" and not "all-talking", yet it still managed to tickle my funny bone and make me care about the characters and deliver what is arguably the best performance by a dog (Uggie) in a film for quite some time. Who wants to bet how much work that dog's going to get? Really a charming film that manages to evoke the period of the time and the passion of the people involved and one in which even silent film nerds can enjoy along with the rest of the crowd.