Tuesday, February 21, 2012

The Artist

The ArtistThis year’s front runner to win the coveted Best Picture Oscar is a wonderful throw back to the early, silent days of Hollywood, when all that could be used to make an audience emote were moving images.

For me, it was also a nice jab at modern Hollywood that said, See, you don’t always need millions of dollars in visual effects to make a good movie!

Synopsis: Hollywood’s number one movie star suddenly finds himself at a crossroad with the advent of sound: join the revolution and start making “talkies” or stick with silent films and risk losing your fans to the newest fad in town.  He choses the latter and is faced with the harsh reality of losing his fame and fortune.  A young new star offers him a second chance.  Will he take it?

Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo do a wonderful job as the stars of yesterday and tomorrow.  Great performances from both.  The cinematography is spectacular, as is the soundtrack, the only aural cue in the whole film.  And the screenplay is as perfect as it gets, telling a rounded story, with a complete arc, using absolutely no words.

Beautiful the final touch, when Dujardin says the only words in the whole movie, and we understand why he felt wary about going into talkies.  Obviously, his strong foreign accent wouldn’t have allowed him to become the huge star he was.

The Bottom Line: The Artist is a well-rounded film that should make audiences fall in love with “serious” films once again.  Direction, acting and screenplay are perfect and any movie lover should make it a point of watching it.

Grade: 9

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