I can’t think of a more positive way of starting the new year’s blogging than to post about a movie that restores your faith in the magic of cinema.

I’m eternally grateful to Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw for raving about Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist.

Bradshaw is a critic whose taste normally coincides with mine and he was not wrong to heap massive praise on this wonderful film.

French actors  Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo as George Valentin and Peppy Miller  are such a perfect match that the movie glides by with real grace and charm.

This could easily have been one of those ‘too clever by half’ pastiches for the chattering classes. Either that or it might have been merely a fun , but gimmicky, film like Mel Brook’s Silent Move (1976).  Instead, it’s a clever movie made from the heart which may not wow a teenage audience but nevertheless has such a universal appeal that I wouldn’t be surprised if it scoops a clutch of Oscars this year.

Hazanavicius obviously has a great affection for the classics of the silent era, particularly the early Hollywood movies. He says he was fascinated by “the stylization of reality”  of this genre.

When asked how making such a movie differs from one with dialogue he says: “it makes you tell the story in a very special way. It’s not up to the screenwriter, nor to the actors to tell the story – it really is up to the director. In this genre everything is in the image, in the organisation of the signals you’re sending to the audience. And it’s an emotional cinema, it’s sensorial; the fact that you don’t go through a text brings you back to a basic way of telling a story that only works on the feelings you have created”.

The plot revolves around a classic rags to riches story of Peppy and the contrast to the hero to zero tale of George. Peppy starts out as a silent movie flapper to become the biggest female star of the “talkie” era. Her meteoric success coincides with the career slide of Valentin whose refusal to ‘talk’ makes him an overnight anachronism .

The part of George Valentin has obvious similarities with Douglas Fairbanks, an actor whose swaggering roles in films like The Mark of Zorro and The Thief of Bagdad immediately looked dated when the talkies became successful. Jean Dujardin is perfect casting in this role as he has the type of rugged good looks that make you think of Fairbanks or Clark Gable.

Bérénice Bejo is also a revelation as Peppy. The look and style of her character apparently owes a lot to Mary Duncan in Murnau’s 1930 movie City Girl.

One interesting footnote is that, In real life,  Bejo is married to Hazanavicius and the couple have had a baby, Gloria – named after Gloria Swanson.  Swanson  played the faded silent movie star Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950) and  this link is appropriate reference as this was one of the influences for The Artist.  This reminded of one of the great lines from that movie;  when an interviewer  says to Desmond “You used to be in silent movies. You used to be big” , she replies:  “I am big – it’s the movies that got small”. 

The Artist is a reminder of just how big silent movies were.

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