My well-publicised francophobia aside (in cinematic terms at least; hey, I'm an eastern-seaboard American who has adopted Great Britain, neither of which has any love lost for the French [thank-you-very-much-Plantagenets-and-Freedom-Fries]), I found myself truly disgusted whilst viewing The Artist last night. Well, not disgusted. Miffed, say.
How can a film about an actor dog and his pet human that does fanciful tricks like funding and directing his own failed vanity project receive so much acclaim and esteem amongst the film industry, critical community, and viewers in general? I've met many people who enjoyed the film and still have retained use of their eyes, so the fact that the wonderfully reappropriated film scores for the soundtrack (including perfect usage of Bernard Herrmann's love theme from Vertigo- one of the most perfect pieces of film scoring ever written) does not fully account for their enjoyment.
To start, let me adapt a contemporary American TV slogan and say: What's my beef? (That was from the late 1920s, right?)
The use of the silent film format is regressive.
When was the last time you thought: Dude, when's the next document to be written in Egyptian heiroglyphs coming out? Knowing my friends, at least one or two of you will have thought that within the last month. But that's not enough by a long shot to warrant the need for such a text, nor for it to be universally lauded. Even if it finds a way to express the word "iPhone" in said form, or comes up with a new way to draw a duck. The fact is, it is an old, obsolete form, and even if it looks nice and pretty, it brings very little new to the table, and even if it is done, the author is challenged by the demand to consistently justify this aesthetic choice, both within and without the text.
This is a struggle the The Artist accepts, embraces, and ultimately fails at. This can be evinced through the similarly ambitious, but, I would consider failed, experiments in the silent film format by Guy Maddin in The Saddest Music in the World and Dracula. While I would argue that The Artist is far more entertaining and much less pretentious than Maddin's work, it is kind of like saying "Light green is more pretty and less green than dark green". Both of these films succumb to the same pitfalls- they both superficially justify this choice, but the intertextual interplay between contemporary sentiments and old aesthetics becomes tiresome.
This can, however, be set apart from Mel Brooks's Silent Movie, wherein, not only is the silent film formula played for laughs, but contemporary knowledge is central to deriving narrative meaning, and, most importantly, humour from the text. That in itself is the justification, and it is utilised perfectly (should Brooks prove your sort of humour-it's not particularly mine, but I appreciate his effort in this case) throughout to create the intended effect. If nothing else, Brooks can't be accused of appropriating old formulas to his advantage.
The Artist appears to use the silent film framework for three reasons: a) To palpably create a sense of historical positioning, b) To immerse the viewer into the world of its protagonist, c) To create a metaphor about, not only the protagonist's inability to express himself verbally, but aslo about the human condition. The film entirely succeeds with the first two, but with the third, The Artist bludgeons the viewer with this metaphor to the extent that all subtlety and nuance, hence, truly embedded meaning is thrown out the window. It no longer manages to be a film in its own right, it becomes a film about the metaphor, undercutting this aesthetic sensibility.
What is there to like?
It is kind of lovely, I guess.
In fairness, it is a nice diversion with a few laughs and has the potential for happymaking. There are some genuinely clever moments, which, unfortunately, feed the metaphor of inability to communicate. There is something beautiful about it, but only superficially.
In terms of the awards-season buzz, though, its success, to me, is more of a travesty than the great Crash of 2005.
Some might accuse me of being a bitter old cynic who fails to find pleasure in some of life's simplest joys.
Well, yeah. But I still think I'm right.
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