The Artist

“I won’t talk, I won’t say a Word”. Those, paradoxically and silently, are the inaugurating words of The Artist, the silent film by Michel Hazanavicious. Without Words is the promise. “You’re not going to listen anything” is what Hazanavicious himself clearly stated. If somehow we were able to describe this movie as it deserves, we would say that it is THE silent film of the XXI century.

The silence is a symbol of feelings and situations a lot more profound, all of them having as a starting point the silence itself, like for example the hardships of change and communication. I would say that there are many movies that affect the public and distributors, films with complex special effects, digital animations, noisy sound designs, but all of these movies simply do not say a thing compared to this one.

This movie’s plot is indeed quite clear and simple: the story is about an actor (played by Jean Dujardin and effectively reminding of Douglas Fairbanks) who, in the transition between silent and non-silent movies, refuses to talk, to register his voice in a magnetic tape, refuses to have his films with sound and, more important, he denies and rejects how the industry is changing in a lot of aspects: in filming, script writing and acting itself. This actor’s decadent career is in contrast with the one of a young artist (Bérénice Bejo) whose career is moving quickly due to the changes in the film industry. She is perfect for the non-silent movies, while he is afraid of them, he does not want to talk and consequently he refuses to listen.

In the tricks of communications lies the truth about The Artist: a man living in plenitude in a full society and with a bright career, refuses to be spoken to and thus to be answered to. It is the story of a system that feels protected and consolidated and thus closes its ears and mouth and builds a protective wall that ignores the warnings of change and crisis that this kind of attitude drags with.

We need to mention other characters like the wife, the producer, and the investors with respect to the refusal of the main character to dialogue; refusal that makes him sink without remedy, that confuses him, disappoints him that makes even harder his transition from the film industry into a world of crisis. In fact, the movie shows moments of depression from the 30s crisis.

The Artist makes clear that the sound is a nuisance, but that the lack of speech is twice as damaging: our hero dreams that everything in his life has a corresponding sound but his own voice. No matter how loud he screams, the feather of a bird hitting the floor is louder than the human voice. 

What can nowadays movies tell that can have the same impact of an atomic bomb like feather?

The film unfolds through a soundless dialogue, relying on two main elements to maintain the rhythm and a powerful communication. One is the muscles of the frames: the close ups on the increasingly famous actress are brighter than the ones of the star in decline. Even when they both fill the same frame, she is brighter and in focus than him, she climbs the stairs, he goes down. The second one is the talent and skills of the characters: actors that without ever talking can make the audience cry and laugh and just feel with them. For ones, it is sure that the great performance delivered by an actor is entirely his merit, rather than the one of very talented dialogues writers.

In these days, a wave of minimalism is back in vogue, wave that aims at launching deep spiritual messages, big considerations and intense feelings. We would do better at turning at movies like The Artist, which studies the origins of the films and shows us that the power of films can rely in the basics of the industry.

The Artist, France, 2011

Director:Michel Hazanavicius

Writer: Michel Hazanavicius (scenario and dialogue)

Actors: Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo and John Goodman