The Artist

I wasn’t entirely sure about The Artist based on the trailer, though a small part of that was not liking the way they had chopped up ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’, by far my favourite bit of big band swing (which in the film itself was replaced by a very similar original track we can charitably call an homage). It seemed like it would be a tribute to 1920s silent movies, I thought it looked entertaining but perhaps overly simplistic and not as clever as it thought it was.

to 1920s silent movies, I thought it looked entertaining but perhaps overly simplistic and not as clever as it thought it was.

Well, it indeed wasn’t quite as smart or innovative as it wanted to be, and suffered from a severe lack of subtlety in places, but it was nonetheless a very enjoyable watch and a loving tribute to a bygone era.

George Valentin is one of the great stars of the silent era. One day, a pretty young fan called Peppy Miller is pictured kissing him on the cheek, which propels her to fame in her own right. However, the silent era is ending and the talkies are taking over. While Valentin and Peppy begin a mostly chaste liaison that others – including Valentin’s estranged wife – may misinterpret, Valentin resists the transition into pictures with sound and gets left behind. The girl who rose up from nowhere to become Hollywood Royalty, though, was perfectly positioned for it, and becomes its new icon. In the end, it is Valentin who has nothing, but just maybe Peppy’s old loyalties will be able to save him.

The obvious comparison is to Rudolph Valentino, but the character is more an amalgam of John Gilbert, who butted heads with his studio head, whose career flopped when talkies arrived, who turned to booze and who an old-flame-turned-big-star attempted to rescue – and Douglas Fairbanks, who played the sort of characters Valentin plays here, and who lavished much of his personal wealth on a last silent film even when talkies had already taken over. There are elements of Mary Pickford as well as Garbo in Peppy, too, and the prominent influence on the film’s overall style is arguably their United Artists co-founder DW Griffiths (with Niblo and Sennett around the edges, of course). The end comes with a fanciful nod to Fred and Ginger.

It’s not really an original or imaginative plot, one that would no doubt occur to most with any interest in silent film, or possibly anyone who has ever seen the beginning of Mack & Mabel. Indeed, I much preferred the way Hugo treated the films of the decade before these, and much was too heavy-handed: a dreadful dream sequence reflecting Valentin’s anxiety about talkies, for example, or the scene where his estranged wife exclaims in titles ‘We need to talk! Why won’t you talk?’ just when his stubbornness about not transitioning to the talkies is dragging down his career. On the other hand, the devotion to a full film in black and white and glorious 4:3 with – barring the very end – only music and a single song is not only fun to watch and a fond homage, but really makes the film memorable in concept. The casting was also great, with one or two familiar, distinctive faces (John Goodman and James Cromwell) complimenting the two main actors’ perfect looks, the leading lady only vaguely familiar from A Knight’s Tale and the director’s previous works with them unfamiliar to me.

Possibly a film those who have seen very little silent cinema will love more than those more familiar with the era, as they will find it more novel and more original in story times, it is nonetheless a very enjoyable, straightforward love story with a satisfying ending, engaging characters and a superb conceptual hook. Oh, and I also enjoyed the fact that its quiet soundtrack prevented the usual loud munching of popcorn – it would have been too distractingly loud, so people refrained.