Silence is golden... so... shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

The Artist

Director Michel Hazanavicius Screenwriter Michel Hazanavicius Cast Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo

The French dream team of director/producer Michel Hazanavicius and actor Jean Dujardin are famous in France for their James Bond spoofs, the OSS 117 films. Now they venture into the States, to 1920s California for a wonderful – and silent – recreation of Hollywood before sound movies really kicked in. The Artist is shot in the same speechless, black-and-white style as the old movies in which the hero, actor George Valentin (Dujardin), stars in so brilliantly, occasionally breaking out into the odd tap-dancing routine to please his adoring audience.

The film is set in 1927, Valentin is a star, but audio filming is incoming and threatening to rout him out. Valentin, a smug glory-lover who laps up the adoration at a premiere, ignores his co-stars and steals the stage with his reliable and loyal performing dog, has a shaky domestic life, and his wife is far from happy when he’s photographed with an unknown woman, leading to an appearance on the cover of a magazine. The woman is actually the young and very beautiful Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), who is then spotted as an extra on George’s next film.

As Peppy and George begin to fall in love with each other, the ‘sound age’ of Hollywood begins and Valentin loses his job, to be promptly replaced by Peppy as the darling of the film world. George loses everything: his house, wife and servant – and to make matters worse, Tears of Love, his first picture as a producer-director-star, bombs on the same day that Peppy’s debut is hailed as a resounding success. Will Valentin move into the ‘sound age’ – or will he be forgotten forever as one of the silent era?

This is a very clever film, especially for an audience who has little or no experience with soundless films. Hazanavicius manages the silent cinema beautifully. The film draws you in, moving seamlessly between funny and sad and turning the dawn of the sound age into a personal tragedy for Valentin.

Feature-length remakes of past genres can often be dull and tired after the novelty has worn off, but The Artist manages to keep the viewers interested throughout, mostly due to its lead actor, Dujardin. Best of all, The Artist never feels like a parody – it’s nostalgically corny, fun, good-looking and respectful. Because of the silence, you wouldn’t know it’s really a French film – especially with John Goodman playing a big-shot producer – although Hazanavicius gives us a quick reminder of the film’s provenance in its final scene, reminding us that so many of the best silent Hollywood films were made by Europeans who crossed the pond.