L’artiste

It is a drama, comedy, romance film directed by Michel Hazanavicius.

The film is about the Hollywood situation in 1927 from the point of view of a silent film star. With the arrival of sonorous film George Valentin take the risk of his career to be forgotten. On the other hand, the actress Peppy Miller who starts as an extra in a movie of Valentin, she became in a sonorous film star. It is the history about two intertwined destinies.

The way of the movie was done has the intention of the viewer feel really what a silent film actor felt at that time. The black and white color and the use of the black screen with the dialogues are crucial for the message that the movie wants to convey. Even though, the dialogues were avoided as possible, because in that time they were not used and because they pretend to seem like the old moves in black and white.

The sound is almost nil in the movie, just when the protagonist was involve with the sound or according to his feelings the sound appears. It is a very personal view of the protagonist, a silent film actor who is facing with the new sound productions: “the future” as they used to call it. So, if for him there was not sound for the spectator neither.  I found this very interesting and creative. In a moment of the movie we can see clearly the use of the sound when in a Valentin’s dream everything around him has a sound: the environment, the other people, except him, he had no voice.

We can see that music plays a role very important in that sort of movie. Therefore, it helps us to understand the feeling of the character of a deeper way. The character’s personality describes him as a petulant, cocky and egocentric person.

A characteristic that I found very important to mention is the use of the symbolism in the film and the way of the objects are related according to the situation. It is like as all the objects reveal the same feeling, for example at the scene that Valentin is watching his movie, and he appears sinking in the sand as a representation of what happens in his real life. As in other scene which Valentin show us his desperate and confusion face and it is alternated with images of statues making the same gesture, it symbolizes his feeling.

The great end concludes with an establishing shot to place us in the space where the protagonist is in, that is his life, where he always wanted to be, his passion, which he cannot live without it, that is the cinema. On the last scene the sound is incorporated when Valentin is already part of the sonorous world, now, he can hear himself.

Now we understand why the film has so many nominations and it was the winner of three Golden Globes.  It is a great film, representing one of the most significant moment for the cinema in Hollywood, with an excellent cast.  

It is a different film for the 21 century because it is leading us of the hand to feel that we are in other time, the time of the silent movies.