The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius, 2011)

[Kirkinson]

While I agree with what you're saying, I would like to offer a defence of Photoshop, be it Elements or the full program, or any other Photo editing software.

My apologies, I absolutely didn't mean to cast aspersion on Photoshop in general or imply that anyone who uses it is "cheating." As a photographer myself I use it all the time, and I would defend it in exactly the terms you did if someone else's post gave me the same impression you apparently got from mine. All I was saying is that if one already has the program, one can make a lot of one-click improvements that don't require any special knowledge of photographic technique. Indeed, I specified Photoshop Elements in my post because it's the version of the program that casual, non-professional picture takers are more likely to have, and it's specifically designed with more built-in hand-holding and a greater emphasis on easy fixes. If you actually know what you're doing, obviously Photoshop can give you a tremendous amount of precise and nuanced control over your photographs, and there is as much artistry in this as anything else. While I'm at it, I'll also clarify that I don't begrudge anyone using automatic settings on the camera if they take a great photo -- if the photo is great, it's great. I was only making the point that it's not uncontroversial to say that a good-looking high-res digital photo takes more "effort" to produce than a Polaroid.

[lady wakasa]

On to the matter at hand, I agree that I've never watched a film from any past era and thought it would be so much if only the filmmaker had (pick your favorite technology au courant ).

While I completely agree with you, I think it was Paul McCartney who (recently) said that a lot of what was attempted with Magical Mystery Tour would have been better realized with modern (computer) technology.

Though Abbey Road Studios were less state-of-the-art than certain American studios at the time - Abbey Road (the album) was the first Beatles album recorded on eight-track. If they were recording their albums nowadays, would they necessarily be better, just different?

Just to clarify - he was talking about the movie, not the album.

I think what he was getting at was more "we didn't quite realize what we wanted to because the tools didn't exist," rather than "it's really good - for the 60s" (which I don't consider a minus at all).

And going back to The Artist: it was a fun popcorn movie, and a way I can get the people around me interested in the silents I've loved since I was 13 w/o them doing the "there she goes again" bit. %^D

If someone watches The Artist, then is open to, say, Singing in the Rain, *then moves on to Roscoe Arbuckle and Luke the Dog - I think the movie's done quite a bit, even if Hazanavicius isn't making a true silent picture. It's acting as a bridge to the real thing, and defines for a more mainstream crowd why someone might like a silent film. That, I think, isn't a minor consideration.

[AWA]

While I agree with what you're saying, I would like to offer a defence of Photoshop, be it Elements or the full program, or any other Photo editing software.

My apologies, I absolutely didn't mean to cast aspersion on Photoshop in general or imply that anyone who uses it is "cheating." As a photographer myself I use it all the time, and I would defend it in exactly the terms you did if someone else's post gave me the same impression you apparently got from mine. All I was saying is that if one already has the program, one can make a lot of one-click improvements that don't require any special knowledge of photographic technique. Indeed, I specified Photoshop Elements in my post because it's the version of the program that casual, non-professional picture takers are more likely to have, and it's specifically designed with more built-in hand-holding and a greater emphasis on easy fixes. If you actually know what you're doing, obviously Photoshop can give you a tremendous amount of precise and nuanced control over your photographs, and there is as much artistry in this as anything else. While I'm at it, I'll also clarify that I don't begrudge anyone using automatic settings on the camera if they take a great photo -- if the photo is great, it's great. I was only making the point that it's not uncontroversial to say that a good-looking high-res digital photo takes more "effort" to produce than a Polaroid.

No apology necessary, great post, great points and I fully agree. I'm sorry if I misread what you were saying. Perhaps that's just a knee jerk reaction on my part, I find myself having to defend the idea of "Photoshopping" all the time, like that's a swear word. It makes you wonder if photographers in the mid 20th Century ever had friends and other people dismissing their work as mere products of excessive Darkroom'ing.

One thing is certain though - the line between professional photographer and amateur everday one is long gone. That isn't a good thing either. In general there is a large tide of cheap, aesthetically hindered junk out there filling our eyes. To bring this back on topic, that is one of the more impressive aspects of The Artist - the wonderful cinematography. I know this was shot on 35mm film - but does anyone know if this was transferred from colour footage or was it using actual B&W 35mm film stock, which would be extremely rare these days. Just curious. Haven't seen anything about that anywhere...

ETA: The Hollywood Reporter shares this from an interview with cinematographer Guillaume Schiffman:

Was The Artist always meant to be shot in black and white? Yes. From the beginning, [director] Michel Hazanavicius wanted to do a silent movie in black and white with a ratio of 1.33 [which means shooting a film for full-screen, not widescreen], like in the old times. We were asked to shoot a color version for TV, but Michel was not at ease with that, and the producer Thomas Langmann encouraged us to do it only in black and white.

I guess it was shot in colour. As they usually do these days. Colour desaturated apparently gives a broader greyscale. Some of the footage looked like actual B&W film stock, but I guess I'm wrong.

[D_B]

I really liked this film a lot, but will start off by things I felt were wrong with it:

- The opening movie (with the hero being tortured in a lab) seems off for an American film from 1927. At times the film comes perilously close to perpetuating the myth that in the late 20's silent film acting was 'big' and melodramatic as it had been in the early silent era).
- Don't know of any big 'serious' star of that era who would be paired with a dog co-star. (even the big silent comedians, all geniuses at working with animals, seemed to feature different ones from film to film - no doubt being wary of being upstaged).
- Poppy's 'beauty' is more contemporary than of that era (MAYBE a bit similar to Lupe Velez though?)
- The silent film George makes proclaiming himself an 'artist' is the worst kind of potboiler - why didn't Hazanavicius go for something more artistically ambitious like 'Sunrise'? It really does not reflect well on the character.

What I liked:

- The basic concept is genius when it comes to presenting a silent film to a contemporary audience, as the whole story being about sound is like an extremely clever narrative bridge between two worlds for an audience who now take dialogue for granted. The prejudices facing the hero are those the general audience would agree with when the film begins and the film's challenge is to stand those prejudices on their head.
-I personally think the use of the dog is genius insofar as I'd say the 'hero animals' is something that still resonates in a primal with many despite the fact that the convention has fallen into disfavor by the creative community.
- There is something fascinating to me how Dujardin resembles Gene Kelly (so apropos considering silent-to-talkies film Singin' in the Rain') and also pulls off a Douglas Fairbanks-like panache (funnily, something Gene Kelly often referenced himself). I really bought Dujardin as somebody who would have been a star in that era. There was a good balance between 'stillness' (when the character hits the skids') and bigness in his performance which for me never struck a false note.
- Stills I'd seen of Bejo really bothered me, because I thought she looked too contemporary - but her performance won me over, her exuberance was framed in such a way that made me believe she COULD have been a star of that era, even though she does not seem derivative of any particular actress I can think of.
- There were some really lovely moments, like when Poppy looks at the takes of her and George dancing and the stop-motion quality of the images representing the frames of film in her hand.
- A a really lovely score that is not really of that era, but has a timeless quality that seems 'right'.
- I can understand why many might find the plot pretty manipulative regarding the changing fortunes of the hero, I do think it shed an interesting light on a sexist society where it was shameful for a man to lean on a woman for help
- In the above respect, the ending could be seen as a copout

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(ah ha, she finds a way to save him AND preserve his ego!)

but I still really liked it as being so true to the early of early talkies, and a little poignant as

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these very early musicals (pre Fred Astaire) look pretty rough and have been virtually forgotten. Also liked this as a 'bridge' to sync sound.

Now, I would NOT hold this film up with one of the truly great 1920's silents like Sunrise, The Scarlet Letter, The Wind, The Crowd, Show People, Faust, People on Sunday (and too many more to name - not to mention all the great silent comedies). I'll tell you this though, I'd take it over some other similar sound era 'classics' like any variation of "A Star is Born". I think this is a film that most average American audiences could appreciate while there would be a big 'perception gap' that would make them have a hard time tuning into the great silent films I mentioned.

Maybe this film will get some people who wouldn't otherwise look at a silent film seek out some of the classics, although I doubt anything could inspire a whole lot to do so.

[Brianruns10]

Just saw The Artist. My beefs with it are many, and already expressed by others here far more eloquently. Derivative, pastiche, hackneyed, unoriginal, artistic plagiarism.

My one bit to add, the moment I realized I was being played, nay, the audience was being played for fools by a fool as a director: the moment Bernard Herrmann's "scene d'Amour" from "Vertigo" popped up for six bloody minutes. What the FUCK does a piece of music from a late 1950s psychological thriller have to do with an homage to the late 20s and early 30s? There was no goddamn reason for that song to be in there, aside from the fact I'm sure the director loved it, and had the moola to license it, and it's all nice and sad, which is great for that melodramatic finale. But I couldn't help but recall the complexity, the devastating scene for which the music was ORIGINALLY created, and I thought:

"How DARE that director use THAT piece of music for his film?" Until that moment, I had never known was cinematic blasphemy was. That scene was it in spades. It broke my heart to hear Herrmann's masterful work being diminished by this, this, MEDIOCRITY for his goddamn film.

I left that theater angry. "The Artist" for me represents all that is wrong with cinema. A meaningless exercise in style and appropriation. If The Artist wins ANY Academy Awards, as far as I'm concerned they are stolen, and rightfully belong to Orson Welles, Bernard Herrmann, William Wellman, and John Gilbert to name a few...

[matrixschmatrix]

There was no goddamn reason for that song to be in there, aside from the fact I'm sure the director loved it, and had the moola to license it, and it's all nice and sad, which is great for that melodramatic finale.

That... seems like some perfectly valid reasons to put a piece of music in a movie.

[knives]

He wants a reason to be angry gosh darn it and he'll take anything he can think up.

[hearthesilence]

Kim Novak Cries 'Rape' Over 'The Artist's' Use of Music From 'Vertigo'

[mfunk9786]

Fuck her, seriously. People in the public eye need to stop co-opting that word for unbelievably frivolous reasons. Especially the way she put it... gross.

[matrixschmatrix]

Yeah, that's pretty indefensible I think. In terms of insults to actual victims of sexual abuse, it's not worse than 'George Lucas raped my childhood' stuff, but it's not better.

[knives]

When I first heard this story I thought it was one of those silly mash up things, but her use I would argue is worse than that with Lucas because at least there there's a logical progression to hyperbole. Here it doesn't really make sense.

[Tom Hagen]

You know how I know that it's indefensible? Sports fans don't even use it. Could you imagine someone saying: "Alabama will totally rape LSU tonight!" or "Will Tebow rape the Patriots next weekend?"

[hearthesilence]

I'm not that big on Star Wars, so I might've missed some detail about the use of "rape" in that case, but I thought that was more of a tasteless joke whereas Novak is dead serious? Anyway, it's weird how the term is used in a less-than-serious manner these days (the new adjective "rapey").

[knives]

That's the beautiful thing about the English language I guess. It's ever evolving. Hell, many commonly used words today used to have taboos hanging over them while many tabooed words have developed from relatively safe places (shit for instance).

[Gregory]

Novak is being overdramatic, and it's really Herrmann's body of work that's being appropriated for an inferior film, not Novak's own as she claims.
But I'm not sure the word "rape" is being "co-opted" anytime its used in a non-sexual sense. The word has never exclusively meant that, and it did not originally refer to that. The use of the word "rape" to mean sexual violation, and only that, is mainly in relatively recent legal terminology (i.e., to define the crime of rape in the now-assumed sense). But yeah, it shouldn't be thrown so frivolously.

[Mr Sausage]

Novak is being overdramatic, and it's really Herrmann's body of work that's being appropriated for an inferior film, not Novak's own as she claims.
But I'm not sure the word "rape" is being "co-opted" anytime its used in a non-sexual sense. The word has never exclusively meant that, and it did not originally refer to that. The use of the word "rape" to mean sexual violation, and only that, is mainly in relatively recent legal terminology (i.e., to define the crime of rape in the now-assumed sense). But yeah, it shouldn't be thrown so frivolously.

Well, the use of the word rape to mean a violent sexual violation of a woman is a very old one (15th century in English, older in etymological sources). But, yes, it is worth bearing in mind that the origin of the word came from the general idea of taking something that is not yours. It has the same etymological root from which we get the word rapine, to pillage, or raptor, meaning thief.

So, while any denunciation I make won't be done on principle, it is clear that Mrs. Novak's intent was to compare the appropriation of Herrmann's work to sexual violation, and that's an awfully low thing to do, among other, vaster problems.

[Yojimbo]

Not a fan. A calculated crowd-pleaser, a lot of moments were very cloying - many of its frothiest moments immediately cut to a forced cutesy reaction shot of an extra being entertained, which quite frankly, is one of the most irritating tropes in "feel-good" filmmaking. It's no different than pumping up a god-awful laugh track to create the illusion that a sitcom joke is funnier than it really is. A shame because there are some (but to me, not a lot) of funny moments in this picture, and many of them were undermined by this.

One reason I tried to like this movie is that I love silent films and do miss them, especially silent comedies, but I thought the way this movie handled that conceit was really hit or miss.

They pack a lot of tongue-in-cheek one-liners (or rather title cards), making fun of the fact that this is a silent film. At least one or two are a little poignant because they highlight the main character's misfortune from the rise of sound pictures. But most of these jokes were too clever by half.

There was one brilliant moment that I thoroughly enjoyed - I won't give it away, but you'll know it when you see it because it's so much better than the rest of the movie. In fact, it even suggests a different, insanely brilliant film they could've made using the same raw material, but unfortunately, a minute or two later, you'll see that it won't come to pass, something that was a massive disappointment for me.

Also, the concept seemed too derivative, even unimaginative. As an homage, it often remains a pale imitation of films from that era. Not sure if anyone considers this a serious silent film revival, but it isn't because Pixar already did it, several times over and a whole lot better. Granted they weren't complete silent films, but watch the first half of Wall•E, then the prologue to Up. A whole lot more impressive, a lot more innovative, a lot more entertaining, and they did it without words too. (The Artist still makes heavy use of title cards and signs.)

Jean Dujardin is good, he was very enjoyable without ever becoming cloying. Bérénice Bejo wasn't bad - casting her as the up-and-coming star is a bit of a cheat because she's Argentinian, and female stars of the silent era were generally lilly white, but that's a minor complaint. (They sort of addressed this in one of her character's first roles.) I generally like John Goodman and James Cromwell, but their performances were somewhat like the film's storyline in reverse - they weren't bad, but the visual and physical aspects of their performances didn't make up for the loss of their excellent voices.

I think trying to like this film made things worse because the effort just made me more aware of everything that wasn't very good about it. But whatever, it's a crowd-pleaser, it's got the Weinsteins' money behind it, it'll probably be a hit, win a bunch of awards and take its place next to the The King's Speech in film history.

Its just opened here but everything I've read and heard about it has convinced me to pass

[TMDaines]

You know how I know that it's indefensible? Sports fans don't even use it. Could you imagine someone saying: "Alabama will totally rape LSU tonight!" or "Will Tebow rape the Patriots next weekend?"

Err? It's used like that all the time like that by sports fans. Just google any sports team or city followed by the word raped and see how many hits you get: "Manchester raped...", "City raped..." etc.

Like Sausage said, I understand the stupidity of comparing this to the act of actually being raped but the word - like virtually every other word in the English language of a horrible act - is used out of context all the time.

[Brian C]

Err? It's used like that all the time like that by sports fans. Just google any sports team or city followed by the word raped and see how many hits you get: "Manchester raped...", "City raped..." etc.

Maybe this is just a difference between the US and UK, but I agree with Tom. I virtually never hear this. Doing some Google searches for the New England Patriots (the team I arbitrarily designated as most likely to be used as a rape example) turns up a few blog comments and the like, but nothing that suggests to me that the term is in widespread use.

[Roger Ryan]

Of course, only about 45 minutes ago I heard a co-worker use the word to describe a football team's defeat!

Apart from her poor use of this term, does anyone agree with Novak that THE ARTIST uses Herrmann's cue is a lazy way? I've not seen the film myself, but it sounds like Hazanavicius simply wanted a piece of music that evoked a certain emotion and the VERTIGO cue was a convenient alternative to having an original cue written.

[Drucker]

You know how I know that it's indefensible? Sports fans don't even use it. Could you imagine someone saying: "Alabama will totally rape LSU tonight!" or "Will Tebow rape the Patriots next weekend?"

Err? It's used like that all the time like that by sports fans. Just google any sports team or city followed by the word raped and see how many hits you get: "Manchester raped...", "City raped..." etc.

Like Sausage said, I understand the stupidity of comparing this to the act of actually being raped but the word - like virtually every other word in the English language of a horrible act - is used out of context all the time.

I hear it in sports all the time, and so much worse. "I totally just raped that psychology exam," is one I heard being around college students in recent years all the time!

[Aspect]

Apart from her poor use of this term, does anyone agree with Novak that THE ARTIST uses Herrmann's cue is a lazy way? I've not seen the film myself, but it sounds like Hazanavicius simply wanted a piece of music that evoked a certain emotion and the VERTIGO cue was a convenient alternative to having an original cue written.

I agree with this even though many films use pre-existing film music - Tarantino, anyone? Drive too, for a recent example. However, those movies use music that specifically pays homage to a particular genre or time in film history. Now, I haven't seen the film either, but I've seen the trailer and some clips, and I can't escape the notion that it simply doesn't look like a silent film to me. If anything, it looks more like a film from the mid-to-late 30s. Compound that with its climax using music from a late 50s film and, as a film history buff, this movie strikes me as confused, even if its heart is in the right place. What is being paid homage is not specifically from the silent era. That's what I think is bothering a lot of people (me included).

Edit: Saw the film and, though everything I said above may be true, it didn't matter when I was watching it. The visual storytelling techniques on display were top-notch and I had a big smile on my face the entire time. It's a delightful film that sticks closer to the silent film template than I expected. I'll try to not to denigrate a film before seeing it ever again (especially based on a trailer!). Like others, I did think the Vertigo cues were a bit strange in the context of the film, but I love the music so much that I was more than happy to hear it through the theater's wonderful sound system.

[Brianruns10]

Well said Roger. "The Artist" history is all over the map. Like, how is it that it is only in 1929 that the main characters are being introduced to the new thing: talkies? Uh, according to my sources, the Jazz Singer was already two years old and by 29 talkies had essentially wiped silents off the map. Every studio had adopted a process, and even the silents that remained to be released were sonorized to cash in.

Now don't get me wrong. It is a work of fiction, I know liberties are to be taken. I don't demand every button be correct, and every piece of clothing the correct thread count, but when a director generalizes to that extent, when he plays so fast and loose with the basic history, such as including a late 1950s song in an early 1930s melodrama, I wonder how exactly can the film be a love letter to hollywood? How can one do an HONEST, real homage when they apparently have little grasp or understanding of just what it is they're paying tribute to? I left that theater with the distinct impression that Hazavicius watched "A Star is Born" and "Singing in the Rain" and went no further, that he knew fuckall about the era.

If Cliff's Notes got into the movie business, "The Artist" would be the kind of film they'd make.

[Murdoch]

You know how I know that it's indefensible? Sports fans don't even use it. Could you imagine someone saying: "Alabama will totally rape LSU tonight!" or "Will Tebow rape the Patriots next weekend?"

I feel like I hear this every time I talk to anyone talking about sports, "The Patriots totally raped Buffalo," etc. I thought it was fairly common, but I don't hang around people that are big sports fans so maybe I've only heard it due to a few chance encounters. But I think you're underselling how widely used it's become, like Drucker said, there are a ton of teens and twentysomethings that use it to describe being successful at nearly anything.

[MichaelB]

There's a line in Goon from an internet ice-hockey commentator that goes "I am predicting this game will become a fucking ass-raping, the lines of which only Ned Beatty and the cast of Oz can comprehend".

(I'm debating quoting it in my Sight & Sound review as part of a compare-and-contrast exercise with the comparatively genteel ice hockey commentary in Slap Shot).