Monday Movies Won’t Talk, We Won’t Say a Word

The Artist. There’s a mansion up the hill from my old apartment at 1928 Micheltorena Street called The Paramour. According to legend, its address comes from the year of its completion as a love nest for a silent film star and his wife. She died, he split, and the mansion became a convent, a girl’s school, and fell into disuse. About ten years ago a local impresario bought it, spiffed it up, and now rents it out for weddings, events and for bands to record in. (I lucked into a ticket for a fundraiser there and got to see Beck, Aimee Mann and Minnie Driver jam out.)

Why does the silent era still hold such fascination? The inability to sync image and sound lasted for the first thirty-five years of the motion picture, still more than a blip but looking more and more like an oddity. The most enduring artworks will be the physical comedy of Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd. The dramas look more and more like a historical phase. The real story is about the first generation of Hollywood royalty being led to the guillotine by their own voices. It’s been told before:

The Artist tells a similar story. Jean DuJardin plays George Valentin (standing in for Douglas Fairbanks), a silver screen adventurer who falls for Peppy Miller, an actress who parlays a meet-cute with George in front of his paparazzi into a film career that nimbly adjusts to talkies while George scoffs and watches his career melt away. Unlike Singin’ In The Rain, which is amazing in its own right but comparatively superficial in its relationship to the silent era, The Artist weaves form and content together in its celebration of the art and technology. Its rules are flexible. It mostly plays as a silent with intertitles and a sweeping score (about whose own pastiches see Richard Brody).  In a nightmare, Valentin (and we) hears the clink of a glass and the slam of a door, then walks outside his dressing room to hear the laughter of chorus girls. And of course, there is a final joke using a few of the actors’ spoken dialogue.

The best thing about  The Artist is the use of faces. DuJardin is a consummate ham. As Peppy Miller, Bérénice Bejo is mesmerizing–she’s got an endless mouth and sequoias for teeth, and when she pops up mugging in front of Valentin’s cameras, it’s hard to read her appearance–at first I couldn’t tell if she was being made fun of for being ugly (she’s not). Director Michel Hazanavicius has great taste in finding known actors whose faces translate to the idiom. John Goodman is the jowly and glowering director. Jamie Cromwell is the kindly, loyal chauffer. Malcom MacLarenMcDowell [thx oudemia] shows up randomly in an audition line, but he looks good.

There are lots of moments that are intelligently self-aware without being cloying, especially in an opening sequence set in a movie hall that layers shadows on projections on actors behind screens. Overall, the story is charming and clever, though not as deeply affecting as it’s gotten credit for.

• Magic Moment: Anything between Valentin and his sidekick Jack, played by a Jack Russell terrier named Uggie.
• Screenwriting tips: Valentin is kind of a schmuck. At times it seems as if his tragic flaw is pride, which in itself can grow tiresome to watch. The balance between internal and external obstacles was never quite dead-on; he had too many problems that could have been solved by being a little less schmucky or self-pitying.
• Health tip: Burning a huge pile of silver nitrate film stock will take your skin off, not leave you recuperating gently from smoke inhalation.