RogerBW's Blog

The Artist 31 January 2023

2011 drama, dir. Michel Hazanavicius, Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo; IMDb / allmovie. George Valentin is a star of the silver screen, but the talkies are coming…

This is the kind of thing that happens when a director's previous film has made a lot of money: Hazanavicius' parodic additions to the OSS 117 series, originally straightforward sixties spy caper films, gave him a fair amount of creative freedom in terms of what to do next.

And what we get is a love letter not to specific films but to the idea of The Movies as a whole, reminding me at times of Cinema Paradiso (1988) in its attempts to convey the wonder of its chosen era of filmmaking, complete with its quirks and foibles and human failings.

The odd thing, though, is that… well, I've seen films from the 1920s. I've enjoyed them. I have plenty of time for the acting styles of Fairbanks and Pickford and Wray. And for most of its running time this could be just another of those films, pleasing enough, but not outstanding. Maybe I just have no soul. I suppose that the typical audience is not a weirdo like me who already knows and likes the pre-talkie, pre-Code, era of filmmaking, but rather someone to whom this is a new and strange thing that takes getting used to.

(Similarly I grew up with a small black-and-white television as the only set in the house, so I very easily adjust to monochrome video; I'm told that many young people today, having hardly ever seen any video that wasn't in colour, find it hard work to watch when they do meet it.)

There are a couple of excursions into sound, and in particular George's nightmare (in which sound and the sight of the things producing the sound become entirely disconnected) seems as though it might be using the conventions of the form to create something rather more experimental (much as Die Farbe (2010) is in black and white except for the actual Colour out of Space)… but it never goes anywhere.

Perhaps it's unreasonable of me to expect it to do so; I did enjoy this for what it is without needing it to be more. Perhaps it's just that when a film wins five Academy awards and is near-universally praised I expect to be amazing rather than pretty good. It's pretty good, and that's a lot better than many films.

Once more if you want more of my witterings you should listen to Ribbon of Memes.

Tags: film reviews

See also:
Cinema Paradiso

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2300ad 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech bayern beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 essen 2024 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1