In defense of "The Artist"
Sunday, April 26, 2020 at 9:00AM 
For Oscar obsessives, it's no news that to win big at the Academy Awards can be a curse rather than a blessing. The reigning champions are more discussed and overtly scrutinized than the defeated, their triumph like sweet nectar, attracting the bees of discontentment, resentment, and retroactive bashing. The tides of time can also make an atypical choice seem like a perfunctory one. Notice how some of our strangest Oscar champions of recent vintage have gained the fame of being boring winners when they're anything but. You might not like The Shape of Water, for instance, but a love story between a mute woman and a fish-man is not your run of the mill Best Picture winner.
The same can be said about The Artist, a romantic tale with comedic overtones that, in 2012, became the first silent film to win the Oscars' top honor since 1928…
While it's true that Michel Hazanavicius' most famous work is slight, whimsical and deeply inconsequential, those aspects don't have to be necessarily seen as faults. First and foremost, this trifle of a picture is a technical achievement of the highest order, resurrecting the aesthetics of late 20s silent cinema with awe-inspiring precision. From the flashiest costumes to the minutia of blocking and composition, the use of music and the editing patterns of scenes, The Artist is pastiche done with near-archeological exactitude, taking Hazanavicius' customary exercises in cinematic homage to another level. You can find a similar ethos in his OSS 117 series, which tries to bring back the pleasures of 60s action Eurotrash to contemporary audiences.
Those are deeply indulgent movies that make no qualms about their purpose – to entertain and rhapsodize about the wonders of past cinema. Don't let yourself be fooled by the Oscar gold and Cannes prestige, The Artist follows the same filmmaking logic, though it does so with more brio. It's a movie with a shameless need to please, prioritizing cuteness above any sort of complex psychology. When the picture introduces darker elements to its plot, it's because doing so is part of its love letter to old movies and not because the team behind The Artist is intending on dissecting their protagonist's troubled soul. You can easily take this as damning with faint praise, but it isn't so. Bless The Artist and its joy.
Before continuing on this path, it's a good idea to summarize the plot. The Artist tells the story of George Valentin, a John Gilbert-esque movie star, and up and comer Peppy Miller, a wannabe starlet whose name is a good descriptor for her general attitude. As the advent of sound shakes the movie business to its core, Valentin sees himself losing fame and money, while Miller ascends to the upper echelons of stardom, their fates united in a dance of charming romance and self-destruction. In the end, it all goes well, though there are some brushes with death before we reach that conclusion. It's A Star is Born meets Singin' in the Rain, two of Hollywood's favorite stories about itself married in the form of silent melodrama.
It's not any sort of grand narrative opus with lots to say about the neurosis of creative types or Hollywood history, I admit. Neither is it a Guy Maddin-style exploration of the plastic possibilities of old media. Instead, The Artist is simple entertainment, made for and by cinephiles, that doesn't need or want to signal its importance. In parts, there's such a simplicity to the whole thing that you can't help but smile at the screen. Like when Uggie, the most adorable Jack Russel Terrier you ever did see, takes center stage. Moreover, the actors breathing life into Hazanavicius' movie-mad reveries are admirably adept at exploring complicated acting registers that have long gone out of style.
As Peppy, Berénice Bejo can sometimes err on the side of broadness, but Jean Dujardin is pitch-perfect as Valentin. He even finds his way of portraying the charming matinée idol of the beginning and the suicidal wreck of the movie's climax with tonal coherence and not one false note. The greatest sin of the whole thing is its loss of momentum as it goes along and comedy gives way to sentimentality. Its general playfulness tends to obfuscate such faults but they are there. However, that critique can be equally aimed at many a great popular success of silent-era Hollywood making this fault more of a feature all things considered.
To describe The Artist as lazy Oscar bait is disingenuous, at best, and vitriolic, at worst. After all, how many romantic comedies have won Best Picture in the last few decades? How many silent black and white movies? If not for the Weinstein's involvement and the effective campaign that got the project its controversial laurels, it's difficult to imagine it making much of a dent on the awards season. Maybe if the movie had some weighty subject matter or portentous real-life story attached, it wouldn't be so easily dismissed. In any case, when it's all said and done, The Artist will forever shine bright as one of the strangest Oscar champions of our time.
The Artist is new to streaming on Netflix. It's also available on The Roku Channel and Vudu Free. You can also rent it on Redbox, Amazon, Youtube, and others.
Reader Comments (33)
Claudio: I have no idea why anyone has that much of a problem with The Artist. Sure, it's not anything I'd personally say is my Best Picture of 2011, but the real question is "Would I say it's the best of that nominee field?" And...yeah, thinking on it more, it is. The biggest ACTUAL issue is Dujardin being...maybe a bit young for this part...?
The Artist was not the best picture of the year, but I bear it no grudge. It's a good movie, so I can't complain, not when some genuine stinkers have won the big prize.
Whatever happened to Jean Dujardin?
White people fawn over Europeans a lot, but suddenly become indifferent when it comes to Asian actors.
I love The Artist and it's actually one of my favorite BP wins tbh.
The story wasn't new, but how it was adapted felt so effortlessly charming. Of course Uggie was the MVP, but Dujardin was great also.
Dujarin's Oscar win was one of the most delightful Oscar moments in recent memory. I also adore this movie, and while it isn't my personal BP winner...of that field...the only one I'd rank above it is Hugo.
1) Beginners
2) Mysteries of Lisbon
3) Tomboy
4) Drive
5) Hugo
i also think The Artist is one of the better BP winners of the past twenty years, and it will wear well with time. Claudio, to your point it's the kind of movie that rarely wins but it brings SO much joy. nowadays most people think that, for example, Singin' in the Rain should have won, or that Tootsie should have won...nobody watches or gets joy from The Greatest Show on Earth or Gandhii. even ten years later, looking at its rival nominees, The Artist feels like the best choice to me.
similarly for Dujardin's win. so intricate, so accomplished, so joyful..a technical marvel but also so deeply felt.. i think michael fassbender's work in Shame that year is one of the best pieces of acting ever, but since he wasn't nominated, i think Dujardin's performance was the best on the list.
I'm not a fan of The Artist personally and wish it wouldn't have won, but I'd never call it lazy Oscar bait. I think they took a lot of risks in this day and age making a movie like that. I just didn't love it like I wanted to.
Best best actor win of the decade!
I remember enjoying this film well enough. And while I personally prefer Moneyball, Take Shelter, and at least eight other releases from that year to it, the worst I can say about The Artist’s win is that I always forget about it when trying to list off recent winners from memory.
I really liked this movie until the lift the soundtrack from "Vertigo"
I think it is awards bait because what other market would it hit?
It would never be a blockbuster, it would never conquer the Sundance market, it's not family fun, not on the summer calendar, etc. Some Oscar nominees like Michael Clayton, The Post or Ford vs Ferrarri would be very good mid-range movies. I couldn't see Artist aiming for that, it's going for broke as a best picture nominee in my book
Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation was the best film.
Orrin: as Claudio said, the market is the art house market.
This is a very fine winner overall, although obviously nothing comes close to "The Tree of Life" in that year's lineup.
The Artist is a fine best picture winner, and probably the best film among the top contenders of its year. Yes, Tree of Life is much better, but the domination there was the reward. It's a risky film that could have easily failed, but works both technically and emotionally. That's better than other wins this decade.
The movie is nice, but Dujardin is fantastic in it!
Out of all the Best Picture winners a case could be made for The Artist being the least likely. Not only is it a black and white silent movie, it was a romantic comedy, made in France, none of the leads were known in Hollywood and the director was a journeyman known for his broad comedies.
But in my book it's among the best winners of this millennium: I still remember the joy of watching the movie in a packed theatre, Though yes, as Jaragon indicates, using the Vertigo soundtrack instantly snapped me out of the film.
What makes the film endure is it's seemless mix between style, theme and ambition. Everything in the film makes total sense 'apart from that Bernard Herrmann faux pas). Just take a look at Blancanieves, a Spanish movie that was released not long after The Artist and that tries to pull off a similar trick. That one is just a quite boring genre exercise, not a riumph of cinematic joy, like The Artist.
I'm fine with The Artist. If in a few years someone does a similar write-up for Green Book, it will not be pretty.
If you love movies, there’s reason no reason to hate The Artist. I found it a lot more appealing than ‘Best’ Pictures like Argo, The King’s Speech, Birdman or The Departed.
The Artist is fun. That's never a bad thing. I had fun watching it. It was a lovely homage to the silent film and extremely well performed by the cast. About the only thing I didn't like was Uggie getting all the spotlight when Cosmo was right there in Beginners being subtitled with some of the funniest dialogue of the year.
Most of the Best Picture competitors that year were either gravely serious or inspired by true events. Remember, this is the year that Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close was competing for Best Picture. The Artist stood out for being fun, precise, and mercifully short. Only Midnight in Paris was shorter; everything else was over 2 hours long and, frankly, felt like it. The Artist was an original film with a different look and tone that really stood out in a crowded field.
I don't know if the argument that an "unusual" winner convince me. I prefer to get involved for a story and their development more than just the merits of the realization.
I don't feel particulary in love with this film even when I appreciate the "originality" of the plot, but I find terrific the performance of Jean Dujardin.
Claudio: Its Michel, not Michael.
The film initially gives no reason for Valentine's dread of the advent of sound; one can only guess. But those who know nothing about it probably never heard of Emil Jannings and many other European stars working in Hollywood who had to go back to their countries because they had terrible accents when speaking English. In the very last scene, it's confirmed that language was the reason, when -after dancing- he says "Thank you" with a marked French accent.
Robert G -- Cosmo is great, that's true.
For the record, I wouldn't even nominate THE ARTIST for Best Picture, but I don't think it deserves the vitriol I've seen it get over the years. I know some people who loathe it with a passion that I have never been able to comprehend.
By the way, my top 10 for 2011 based on Oscar's eligibility list would be something like this:
01. A SEPARATION
02. CERTIFIED COPY
03. THE TREE OF LIFE
04. MARGARET
05. WEEKEND
06. MYSTERIES OF LISBON
07. DRIVE
08. MELANCHOLIA
09. BEGINNERS
10. TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
runner-ups: MEEK'S CUTOFF, UNCLE BOONME..., YOUNG ADULT, PARIAH, THE ARTIST.
Marcos -- Sorry for the mistake and I have already fixed it. Thanks for pointing it out.
Also, with that accent and natural charm, I could easily see Valentin turning into a Maurice Chevalier-type star in the sound era instead of the John Gilbert/Douglas Fairbanks/Rudolph Valentino hybrid he seemed to embody in silents.
"The greatest sin of the whole thing is its loss of momentum as it goes along and comedy gives way to sentimentality. Its general playfulness tends to obfuscate such faults but they are there. However, that critique can be equally aimed at many a great popular success of silent-era Hollywood making this fault more of a feature all things considered. "
This passage illustrates exactly why I am NOT fine with its win.
For me,a Best Picture winner should not have glaring faults like this. It doesn't have to be faultless (most people have only a small list of films that they subjectively rate as faultless - I have eight), but the loss of momentum took me out of the movie magic and into movie critic territory. And IMO, this is automatic disqualification for Best Picture consideration. Even last year's win for GREEN BOOK, whilst not my personal choice, I am not as passionately opposed to because it was entertaining enough and kept me with it all the way.
Many of its other nominations and wins I am fine with, though. I agree with you, Claudio, that it was technically well done, and the two central performances were fine (although I think a win for George Clooney and a nomination for Carey Mulligan (DRIVE) both would've been more deserving).
Jonathan:
The art house market to me is more like a Kenneth Lonegran (sp?) film or Lynne Ramsey or King of California or Junebug or some of Richard Linklater's stuff or even Juno.
This just seems too grandiose
I do like The Artist but it's not The Tree of Life. It's also not Drive, Melancholia, Killer Joe, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Hugo, The Skin I Live In, and so many other films that year that were incredible. <I>The Artist is a film that I think has gotten lost in the shuffle of so many other films that year that were so much better.
I liked The Artist a lot and thought it was a fine Best Picture winner. And Dujardin's win in Best Actor was great.
Nicely written look at the movie.
The film is a charmer and obviously a concept picture and never pretends to be otherwise. I wouldn't have voted it Best Picture of any year but that's no reason to hate on the film. There are many, many other less enjoyable ways to wile away a few hours than revisiting this.
@Joel6 Thanks for this. No, it's not a Best Picture in terms of Oscar, but damn, I loved it.
Folks--check out Dujardin's episode of Call My Agent (season 3 episode 1). It's hilarious.
Just because it’s different than most other Best Picture winners doesn’t mean it’s deserving. I literally cannot believe that Jean Dujardin is an Oscar winner for this. A waste of a season.
Don't forget the music ripped off Herman's score for Vertigo.
Not my fav film of the year but still an adorable and accomplished film. And I love Bejo as Peppy
I wouldn't have chosen it, but I think it works very well. Dujardin is perfection.
I like that Dujardin has mostly stayed in his native France. Sometimes actors do that by choice.