Jan

4

When I was a tiny person, my beloved Uncle Lazarus took me to see the films of Charlie Chaplin. I was stunned by the black-and-white silent images of this silly, funny, pratfall-prone loner with the squooshy mushroom hat, the baggy pants, the cane and the clown shoes. Which he occasionally cooked—and ate! Movies were imprinted on me at the young age of 4 or so as black-and-white, privileged emporia in the company of beloved people.

Why go into this?

Because Hazanavicius’ THE ARTIST brings back the closeted smiles and the secret wonder that went dormant lo those years ago in a cramped theatre in Manchester, England.

In THE ARTIST, it’s Hollywood, 1927.

People are different today from how they were before the advent of ubiquitous cameras, TV, YouTube and Andy Warholic ‘15 minutes of fame’ for everyone including your cousin Pillethia. People held their faces and bodies in a way quite other than how we position our features for the world today. This film captures the expressions before we got so full of ourselves, before we were so all-fired smart and foible-averse about every damned thing around us.

The stars of this rags to riches (to rags to riches) tale are unknown to American viewers, virginal essences in a riveting romantic danceteria of amusement, smirks, joyous bursts, back-room skullduggery and twirling moustaches. French Jean Dujardin, as George Valentin (possible reference to silent film-dream-o Valentino?), is a dashing Douglas Fairbanks-like handsomer-than-life star of the silents, a man of smooth facial planes, broad shoulders and can-do loving heartiness. His co-star, a winning Venezuelan brunette hoofer who climbs the heady, unsteady ladder to dazzling stardom, is Bérénice Bejo, playing Peppy Miller. Perfect name for her energetic shpritzy style of flirtatiousness and talent. As Peppy fizzes higher, and gets her star-making big break, Valentin sinks into the west, a victim of the unstoppable newest craze, Talkies. Valentin won’t budge for the surging trend. And his voice isn’t all that euphonious, we gather. Will he make it?

As Bejo rockets to fame, tracking the maturation of the [American] film industry, she achieves éclat that outsparks poor unvoiced Dujardin/Valentin by a swirling album of sweetheart of America features, done in that page by page calendar style we hazily recall from old film-reels.

Oddly, one’s trepidations about seeing–even enjoying–such a throwback homage to the past in an art field we are so comfortable at dissing and dashing are allayed about three minutes in. The costumes, cars, music, subtitles and hair-do’s beguile and convince us we are seeing not a brand new offering, but a misplaced treasure we somehow managed to misplace for 80-odd years. Those Weinstein folks really know how to throw a throwback.

The fascinating faces, grimaces and unsheltered expressions that carry the day in this early Hollywood re-evocation are delicious to witness and relive. People could attain stardom with a lucky entrance, a toothy grin, a mild romance…all the stuff that disappeared with Lana Turner’s (1920-1995) ‘discovery’ at Schwab’s Pharmacy, at 8024 Sunset Boulevard, sipping a soda. Handy mythology: Even then, the industry was pretty hard boiled.

All that aside, one of the more striking aspects of the film–which also features a gruff John Goodman, a dutiful servant played by James Cromwell, and a long-suffering wife done to a pin-curl by Penelope Ann Miller–is how the audience files out.

As the credits roll, pretty much everyone wears that warmest of coats: A smile on their lips, a tap dance itching to escape the peep-toed shoes on their feet, and a hum warbling inside their throats.

Even a cheeky verbal exchange with Harvey Weinstein himself (the man can be notably testy, as you’ve probably heard) couldn’t wipe the smile overrunning my scarf.


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