The Artist -- a new black and white silent film

Loved it. My favorite movie of the year.

Josh -- Thanks for your report. I really, really want to see The Artist but have no idea when it will open in OKC.

I'm halfway expectin' King Kong to suddenly show up...

'The Artist' is also my favorite movie of 2011 (so far, I haven't seen 'The Descendants' yet). 'The Artist' is awesomely entertaining, has superlative acting, and embodies everything I love about movies and the art of making them.

It gets my vote for Best Picture of the Year come Oscar time.

BTW, with 3 Golden Globe wins last night, perhaps 'The Artist' will be released in more theaters in the coming weeks? Personally, I hope not. I don't want there to be any delay for the Blu-ray release.

Mark

Josh -- The Artist finally opened in one local cineplex today and I saw the first showing. I agree that it is a wonderful, wonderful film. Burdened as I was with high expectations, I was worried that the film would fall short of them but it didn't. I had never before laid eyes on either Jean Dujardin or Bérénice Bejo but they both blew me away. They may be the best non dancing dancers I have ever seen. The film is a love poem to old Hollywood. It was sweet, funny, often moving, and utterly original. Highest recommendations! 10 Stars out of 10.

I should add that my daughter, who lives in Tulsa, called a little while ago to tell me that she had seen The Artist today, too. She loved it as much as I did and said that she was almost as impressed with the Jack Russell terrier as she was with the stars. High marks indeed.

I'd previously seen Dujardin (working with the same director, Michel Hazanavicius) in the spy spoof OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies. While not on the same level as The Artist, it's pretty amusing and worth a watch for fans of early James Bond and other 1960s spy movies.

Looking forward to this film! Hopefully it will be at my local cineplex soon

My daughter mentioned that she had seen OSS 117: Cairo in the conversation I mentioned in my last post. That one, of course starred both Dujardin and Bejo. She liked it but didn't think it was in a class with The Artist. Apparently Bérénice Bejo did not appear in the the latest OSS 117 film, OSS 117: Lost in Rio. Have you seen both films? I haven't seen either but will look for them.

I have become so dissatisfied with both Blockbuster and Netflix, I have dropped both services. I've discussed the reasons why I did so in other threads but won't get into that here. May pickup one or the other of them again sometime but for now I'm managing quite well without either.

I've only seen the first film, which I have on a region-free Blu-ray from France (with English subtitles). Never got around to importing the sequel.


If you have any devices with VUDU, it looks like both movies can be streamed that way. For some reason, the first movie is only available in SD, but the sequel is HD.

I love silent movies, but I'll wait for the BD.

It would be really amazing if this wins the Oscar for BP.
A black and white silent movie!?!

As I understand it, VUDU is a pay-per-view service only, which eliminates it from my consideration. I won't pay ala carte prices for streaming programing other than the occasional Oklahoma football game that I can't get any other way. Where movies are concerned, though, in the immortal words of Tony Soprano, "Fugitaboutit!"


Do yourself a favor and see The Artist in the theater. You will thank me of your do. It is brilliant and utterly original.

I get that impression from the trailers.
However, I HATE going to my local cineplex.
I'll only go if I can't duplicate the experience in my HT (as in Avatar 3D, etc.).

I hear you. Yesterday, I saw Haywire at a local cineplex. Although the rather large crowd was well behaved, the theater's audio level was way too low for comfortable listening. Occasionally the dialog in quiet, dialog heavy scenes was very hard to understand. The day before, I saw The Artist at the same cineplex. That time the sound levels were just right but the film had only two words of dialog. I usually go to a different cineplex because its employees do a far more consistent job of exhibiting films than does the one I patronized this weekend. Gagh!

Saw this today and was not disappointed. I had been exposed to silent films throughout my life, but I was amazed at how one is drawn into emotions this film affords. No distractions. You're left to feel through expressions and it absolutely works.

Beautifully done.

I've not seen it yet, but it seems to have done well at winning awards. Wondering now how it's going to look on blu-ray when it's released?

Doesnt seem to be 3D so I think I will skip this one.

I don't buy many BDs but will be getting The Artist. Whenever snippets of the closing dance number from the film were shown during last Night's Oscars telecast, I was reminded of how charming The Artist is. I was reminded again when its star Jean Dujardin's speech accepting the Best Actor Oscar turned out to be as charming as his performance in the film I was almost as charmed by his costar, Bérénice Bejo, who was also nominated. I thought the only reason she didn't win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar was Octavia Spencer's performance of a lifetime in the role of a lifetime in The Help. The pre-Oscars buzz was that Spencer was a mortal lock to win and that's just how it turned out.

So, are you amazed?

I don't think it won because it's a silent picture.

I think it won because it's a picture about the making of motion pictures, which members of the Academy think is an important and significant process. However, many of the rest of us with real jobs think it is boring and uninteresting. I am among them, I appreciate a well made film, but find the topic of filmmaking itself uninteresting.

If you want to contrast The Artist against an outstanding silent film, compare it to Chaplin's Modern Times. Then tell me how impressive it is.

This reminded me of something that happened to me several decades ago. I decided I wanted to start my own painting and wallpapering business because I was tired of my time and energy going into someone else’s pocket. I was good at it and I was also very good at the customer service end of it but it was hard and, at times, boring work. After a few years I was thinking about changing my career path and mentioned this to my sister-in-law. Her response: “Oh, so you’re going to get a real job?” I was speechless, which is a rarity for me. What a condescending and ignorant thing to say on so many levels. What is a real job and who makes that judgmental distinction? I would bet people in the movie making business, as well as those performing on stage and in the background around the world, would take issue that they don’t have real jobs.

My comment was SPECIFICLY about the arrogance of Hollywood, and the exaggerated sense of their own importance held by those in Hollywood, who are capable of making a film about the process of filmmaking, and then awarding themselves little gold statuettes and accolades from a crowd of admirers carefully roped off like cattle.

If you had gone to the trouble of inventing a gold statuette for painting and wallpapering, and then voted yourself such an award, then bought yourself a tuxedo and arranged a crowd of accolades, I'd feel the same way about YOU. But we both know you did no such thing and my remark was about the entirely incestuous and self-congratulatory process called the Academy Awards.

At least nobody declared themselves the "King of the World" or thanked the "Little People" this time.

I agree that the reason The Artist won the Best Picture Oscar was not that it is a silent movie. I profoundly disagree though that the film was just about the making of motion pictures and that those with "real jobs" will find it boring.

It seems to me that The Artist is really about what happens when a famous artist is deprived of his livelihood by a sudden and unexpected technological change. I thought it was thoughtful, funny, and sometimes moving.

Although I am now retired, I had nothing but "real jobs" for more than 50 years and I loved The Artist. I suggest that most of the many other posters here who also loved The Artist would tell you they, too, have "real jobs." In short, I saw nothing arrogant in the Academy's decision to award The Artist its Oscars. It seemed to me they were well deserved, not because the film was about filmmaking, but because it looked at the human condition in an original and highly entertaining way.

All of this said, our difference of opinion is just another example of what makes our little backwater here, where few but we usual suspects bother to post, so interesting.

I think if I had the chance to be on that stage, I would probably say something silly. I don't judge them. The Artist director said "I'm the most important director of the world right now' or something in that line. What's wrong with that? What's wrong with Cameron using a line of his film which won 11 oscars. Of course he was proud (who thanked the 'little people' btw? I don't remember that one) as he should be. So he said it, big deal. To me the silliest moment was Angelina Jolie showing her leg. She had a beautiful dress, but she managed to add vulgarity to it.

Each year it's the same thing, the winners get instantly dissed and mocked for what they say or do during the ceremony. The biggest Hollywood stars gather for one night, arrogance is part of the show. But I hate condescendance. Yet when I see a little arrogance mixed with elegance, well, I sure can live with it. One could say Meryl Streep was a little arrogant too but what should we expect? She can allow herself to be arrogant, yet she's doing it with class. She's one of the (and arguably the) greatest actresses in the world. Had she been shy the internet and lame blogs would have been filled with "false modesty", "hypocrisy", etc the day after. In any case, it always ends up 'wrong'. That's stupid if you ask me. I don't know how Jean Dujardin's speech looked from a non-french speaking person's angle, but I am french, and when I heard him I did find him a bit silly at times. But I know his career his films, I know (to an extent) who he is and where he comes from, and I can tell you he and his cute wife (who is also an actress) were probably living a surreal moment. 6 months ago he probably couldn't even imagine he would win an oscar. 2 days before there were the cesars in France and he lost. I guess it really doesn't matter now. As Juliette Binoche also said when she won hers, 'it's an american dream'. It really is. That's what Hollywood still is. Yet at the same time it's real.

Besides, you can call Hollywood and the academy awards self-congratulatory and stuff all you want, that doesn't change the fact that The Artist is actually a foreign film.

Do you feel the same distain for ALL other industries that hold award ceremonies? This is not isolated to the film/music business. It just happens to be televised.

Do you continue to watch other shows even though you hate them?

Art

The Artist wasn't about making movies. It used Hollywood and movie-making as a backdrop for its story about coping with change, overcoming adversity, the power of love and so on.

As for Hollywood self-congratulation being why it won the Oscar for Best Picture, if that is so then they are way late as this would be a first for the industry. There have been many movies dealing in one way or another with the subject of Hollywood, some made by the best filmmakers in the history of movies, and none of them won the Oscar for Best Picture (Sunset Boulevard, The Bad and the Beautiful, Two Weeks in Another Town, A Star is Born, S.O.B., The Aviator among them).

While I wouldn't put The Artist among the greatest silent movies ever made (it's not as though any current filmmaker has had enough practice in the art of making silent movies to move into that realm), I think it won the Oscar for Best Picture because it was such a rare pleasure and blessed relief to actually watch a movie who's considerable power was derived by a well-timed cut to a close-up or to a reaction shot of an actor delivering the goods rather than to an explosion on top of another explosion or people floating through cyberspace in a CGI fantasy world.

I adored the film and am happy it won. The fact that it was made in Europe and outside of Hollywood makes it even better.