In 2012, the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences awarded the Best Picture Oscar to a black-and-white, almost completely silent film titled The Artist. This movie is an inspired and cleverly impeccable delight that pays homage to the motion pictures of a century prior.
The movie follows the careers of two actors in 1927. One, George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), is a huge box office star who is about to be confronted with the advent of talking films and how that will impact his career. The other is Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), a young novice actress who is about to see her star rise as Valentin sees his begin to fade. Their journeys are intertwined throughout the tale from the moment Valentin meets Peppy on the street and unwittingly catapults her face into the national consciousness.
Jean Dujardin gives an amazingly flawless performance. His ability to act almost entirely through facial expression is as joyful as it is ingenious. The moments when he is about to shoot his first scene with Peppy on a dance floor, where he begins take after take, are brilliant. Berenice Bejo is beguiling as the effervescent newcomer who maintains a crush on the man who helped catapult her into her burgeoning acting career.
The music by Ludovic Bource is stellar. From the opening moments of the playhouse, through the closing credits, it enforces the tempo and mood fantastically. The few moments where non-musical sound is employed, along with a prolonged scene completely devoid of any sound at all, are examples of director Michel Hazanavicius’s uncanny skill of packing every moment to its fullest potential. The camera work was also very entertaining. A stairway scene within a production company where all the people bustling about seem like ants in an ant farm, and a scene in a restaurant where we are presented with a split screen that isn’t really a split screen were two standouts, among many. The Artist is feel-good escapism at its absolute finest. A jewel. An inevitable classic.
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