Watching The Artist is like watching, as a man prods a dead body with a stick: sometimes he hits pressure points and it appears for a moment as if the corpse is re-animated; but, it’s just an illusion. The silent picture is dead, for good reason. The Artist is not a great film, nor is it a great silent film. The appeal relies on homage. It is quaint; a throwback; simultaneously a celebration of cinema and a mockery of it. It is not, however, complex. The silent film era is an easy target. It’s been eighty years since talkies changed the face of cinema. The smell of death has long since departed. Enough time has passed. Now, we excavate the corpse. We study it. The cyclical nature of human obsession ensures that what once was lost will be found, for whatever reason. Here, there is no reason. The Artist is a silent film about silent films and, while the premise is cute, it doesn’t transcend itself. Watching it, I find myself overwhelmed with tedium. There are long scenes of lips moving without dialogue. Clearly, due to the critical acclaim and the truck-load of awards that this picture garnered, some find this curious spectacle fascinating enough to not only justify the existence of such a film but also applaud it. Enough time has passed. What was once worm food is now worthy of museums.
This film proudly bears all the flaws of its genre. It justifies its imperfections by making it very clear that it is a resurrection of the imperfect. Facial expressions and mannerisms are exaggerated to cartoonish proportions; dialogue is missing: essentially scenes are limited to what can be conveyed physically. There is no subtlety to the film, none whatsoever; it is the opposite of subtle. The actors break all the rules. They do backflips instead of nodding. They grin instead of smiling. While I find this kind of storytelling to be tiresome, I am open-minded to it. There are certain silent films that transcend the genre. The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari comes to mind. The Artist does not.
It is not only a silent film about silent films. It is a silent film about the death of silent films, allowing the characters to literally discuss the question at hand. The corpse: it is saying, “I am dead for a reason. Look how much I have decomposed over time. Observe - if you will - the empty space where my heart once beat; the rotten cavity that once supported life.” Dead men are easy targets.
For a silent film to exist in this day and age, it needs to be more than just self-referential. It needs to also function as a film. We need to care about the characters, or failing that, about the plot. In The Artist, there is nothing to care about. The dilemma that the protagonist faces is something we’ve seen before. During the film, Robert Downey Junior’s portrayal of Charlie Chaplin in the film Chaplin kept bubbling up to the surface of my psyche; it is essentially the same film, without the gimmick.
French actor Jean Durjadin plays George Valentin, a silent film star at the end of the silent era. His performance, essentially an impersonation of an actor from another time, is perfect. But it’s not a challenging role. Perfecting cheese on toast is much easier than perfecting a soufflé. All Durjadin has to create is the appearance of character. The limitations of the silent film allow him to bypass many of the hurdles that actors face. He is, admittedly, charismatic. He has screen presence. His facial expressions are extraordinary. Durjadin does a lot with very little. His performance is more than satisfactory. But it’s not enough to justify a best actor award. The film, too, is satisfactory.
It is not a bad film. In fact, given the limitations of the premise and the script, I would go as far as saying that it is highly accomplished. The film suffers from the limitations that it places upon itself. It does not suffer from the limitations of silent films. Well, it does. But that’s not the problem. The reasons The Artist fails are not inherent to the genre; the wounds, they are self-inflicted.
It is poorly written. Not because it is a silent film and silent films cannot be well written; rather, because it makes this assumption. If you take Dead Man by Jim Jarmusch and removed all the audible dialogue, replacing it with a series of speech cards, the result would be a superior product. Dead Man is a better film, silent or not. Silence does not increase the quality of film; it decreases it.
The Artist relies heavily on shtick, on gimmick, on quaintness. It is a concept film that does very little with its concept; because, apparently, the concept is enough. Apparently, it is so clever to make a silent film about the death of silent films that we excuse it for being sub-standard. We give the film concessions that other films don’t receive. Silent films were flawed, after all, so why shouldn’t this one be? That’s the justification. But, really, there’s nothing stopping The Artist from being both flawed and perfect. The flaws, imposed by the subject matter, could work in the films favour. They don’t. The Artist is an affectionate mockery. The flaws and limitations of the silent film era are used for cheap laughs, rather than serious consideration or contemporary relocation. It’s easier that way. After all, cinematic origins are silly in a lovable kind of way. Those goofy early twentieth century actors, how absurd they are. Look. Watch them do the Charleston. Observe these ignorant artists. And, distract yourself from your own ignorance. Feels good, doesn’t it?
Here’s a film that is so simple it is accessible to everyone, yet at the same time it is acclaimed to be high art. Because the premise is, apparently, so amazing: it doesn’t need to be complex. No, The Artist doesn’t require the standard prerequisites of cinematic excellence. It is immune to criticism; that, being its greatest accomplishment. What is clever about this film is how it exploits a niche in order to elevate itself to an undeserved plateau. In The Artist, the art takes second place to the artist; it is Andy Warhol, painting a can of soup.
2/5
