The Artist - with many spoilers

The Artist is the silent, black and white tribute to silent movies during the advent of ‘Talkies’ that swept the Academy Awards in 2011, claiming the accolades for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Original Score, Best Director and Best Costume Design. The screenplay is only 42 pages long, despite the movie having a running time of 90 minutes, making it the shortest screenplay to be nominated for any major award. It is exactly 42 pages too long.

Verdict

My movie ratings consist of thumbs up or middle fingers as sometimes one starring something doesn’t shame it enough. 5 thumbs up = an absolute triumph. 5 middle fingers = a complete piece of shit, go fuck yourself.

The Artist - 1 Middle Finger

Completely arrogant, self absorbed and boring.

Favourite quote You’d imagine picking a quote from a silent movie to be like a blind man feeling for the corner in a lighthouse. In this instance there were a few quite clever lines delivered in text during the action.

“We need to talk, George” - The ironically delivered line from George’s wife as she leaves him.

Other quotes: “Action” - Shouted by a Director at the close of the movie. Clever.

“[They] were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” - Jeff Goldblum talking about The Artist in the movie Jurassic Park

Favourite scene

One of the very few scenes I actually enjoyed was that of Peppy Miller, whilst still starstruck by George Valentin, half climbing into his coat and pretending to hug him. This was a clever way to get her feelings across without any audio clues.

The use of the ‘Hollywoodland’ sign also helped date the picture and was a nice throwback.

Best meme from the movie

Analysis

I was surprised to see that The Artist was another production from The Weinstein Company, making this our second jar entry for the infamous peadophile. The film is considered a success and has received numerous awards, which is no surprise really, seeing as Harvey Weinstein excels in silencing people and thrives in ‘grey areas’.

Critics were always going to love this film. It’s one of the most cuntish things I’ve ever seen. I typically find movies about making movies completely self serving tributes to themselves and rarely enjoy them. There are a few exceptions like Once upon a time in Hollywood which obviously has more than this going on. In the same vein I doubt I’d enjoy reading books about writing books or listening to music explaining the intricacies of music production.

Whilst I’m sure this picture is very clever and pays homage to plenty of important movies and actors of the past, It just wasn’t good. If I’d had a printed off list of all of the references the movie features and things it pays tribute to then maybe I would have enjoyed participating in the Easter egg hunt, but probably not. The beauty spot was a wink at Marilyn Monroe it seems and I’m aware that a few Actors listed on posters in the film were real actors of the time but most of this went over my head. As I’m sure it did for most people.

For the first 30 minutes I had absolutely no idea what was going on or what the film was about. I stormed straight into this experience without reading the summary on Prime and for once this didn’t add to the experience. When it became apparent that this was about the death of the silent movie star I sighed. Not that it was all horrendous - It was no My Dinner with Andre. The dog was brilliant and the humour about people silently telling each other to “Speak!” was acceptable, although the joke was well worn by the time the credits rolled.

I am glad that this movie was placed into the jar. I never would have watched it otherwise. Without this experience I would never have known if I'd enjoy a black and white silent film, although I could have made a pretty accurate guess. This is Geoff’s second black and white pick and I’m beginning to think he’s actually just colour-blind. Which is concerning seeing as he is a painter and decorator.

I will be delving into black and white silent cinema again. The Artist is known for being a black and white silent movie about black and white silent movies. It was it’s gimmick and it was thoroughly boring. I would like to try something a little less pretentious, like a movie about something that just so happens to be silent and in Black and white. Perhaps Wings.

The bottom line

Made for the industry by the industry. This movie wasn’t aimed to entertain as much as it was to stroke a few egos.