HOLLYWOODLAND: I'm trying to figure out how to say this right, and I think Tasha Robinson leads me in the right direction: Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist is an homage to a wonderful era in film history, a demonstration of the charms which can be had without words. But in and of itself, it's just a nice film, but not a great one.
Look: Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo are totally charming and spot-on as the leads. But if I want to see a film about the change from silents to talkies, Singing in the Rain and Modern Times has it beat in spades. The Artist doesn't add anything new to this type of story; it just tells that sort of story with exactly the beats you'd expect -- plus, for some reason, an incredibly distracting swipe from the Vertigo (1958!) score which totally took me out of the movie (as it did Dana Stevens).
The movie is cute and winning, but way too derivative to be truly memorable. Slate's David Haglund is right: this shouldn't be a second straight year for Best Picture to go to a film about a guy who has trouble talking.
I was resistant to this movie while watching it, especially during its first half. I recited a LOT of dialogue from Singin in the Rain. The movie gradually won me over (wore me down?), and I loved loved LOVED the final scene. For me, the difference between this and Singin in the Rain is this: SitR is about the birth of the talkies, but The Artist is about the death of silents. And therefore it's much more melancholy.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to see some really interesting contemporary silent (or feels-like-silent) movies, check out Guy Maddin's movies. My Winnipeg, The Saddest Music in the World, Brand Upon the Brain!, Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary: all wonderful, wonderful movies.
How can I say this without spoiling things completely: I expected the last joke to be something like that, but I wanted it to be a lot funnier.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, Adam. It's a good movie with great acting and nice to watch, but not that unique, nor better than others telling the same story. I saw a double feature of that and HUGO today, and loved HUGO, and only liked THE ARTIST.
ReplyDeleteI'll admit that I couldn't bear My Winnipeg all that long, so maybe it's different after the first whatever or so minutes, but I recall it being rather unsilent. I will never get that creepy narration out of my head. My skin crawls just remembering it.
ReplyDeleteI didn't think it was particularly great, though certainly enjoyable, but I did think the cup was a great jolt of a moment.
ReplyDeleteSue and I saw it tonight, and we agreed that, as with so many things these days, that we'd probably have liked it a whole lot better had it not been built up so much. But I completely agree with Abby that I loved the cup moment.
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