1-26-12 Movie Review: The Artist

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The brand-new silent movie The Artist should be successful in persuading people that the original silent movie could be entertaining in forms from horror to knockabout farce, and that, despite suggestion at one point, silent actors did not “mug” but acted much like people in real life. It will, however, suggest that silent characterizations were more two-dimensional than speaking ones, and that silent dramatic situations were more black-and-white and less nuanced or subtle than sound ones were. As straight entertainment, I don’t think The Artist is much farther from real life in story or technique than movies of today, which are not famous for credibility or subtlety even to the extent they were, say, fifty years ago, under the influence or European realism rather than children’s literature and comic books.

[Wichita showtimes]

It is perhaps unfortunate that The Artist’s plot line is so dependent on A Star Is Born, inviting comparison to the classic with Judy Garland and James Mason, and that it depends so heavily on the legend that it was voices rather than kinds of movies made that changed the movies so much as to end the careers of some of the big stars; there is a kind of realism and narrative and psychological detail that is at least encouraged by spoken dialogue and that took more time to develop plot or character than summary narrations printed on the screen; that was at least as important as suitability of voices. But The Artist is more than a gimmick novelty, and parts of it are as good as anything on the current screen.