介绍:
The Academy must have lowered their standards, because this year an experiment with old fashioned cinema took home five awards, including best picture, best actor and best score. Yes, Michel Hazanavicius is doing it again. After his success with the 'OSS 117' films, he is now pushing his record further back in time, to the Hollywood of the late 1920s.
To guarantee that his new spoof 'The Artist' attracted widespread attention, Hazanavicius referenced 'Singin' in the Rain' and 'A Star is Born' in his production of a black-and-white silent melodrama. With the help of French actor Jean Dujardin and composer Ludovic Bource, Michel Hazanavicius had his way again at the Hollywood and Highland Center.
Hazanavicius is indebted to Jean Dujardin, whose talking eyebrows and charming smile prevent the audience from dozing off. Ludovic Bource's score works to the same effect, providing constant stimulus to viewers whose brains remain largely unchallenged by a flaccid storyline.
Some might consider 'The Artist' a silent film and a tribute to the good old days (and ways). But I'd rather look at it as a director's experiment with creatively traditional filming methods. Strictly speaking, 'The Artist' is not a silent movie. Although Hazanavicius did try to create an impression of the 1920s silent films, for example he shot the movie at a lower frame rate of 22 fps to mimic the speed, the techniques he employed are actually more modern than they are archaic.
More importantly, the characters in the movie are allowed to talk, on two specific occasions: one in the form of a dream, the other at the end of the film. I like the part in the dream when a feather shakes the earth with ear-splitting sound, quite a vivid portrayal of the anxiety of the male lead whose prosperous career as a popular silent movie star is about to be cut short by the advent of talkies.
There are many other smart maneuvers in the film, all testifying to the fact that Hazanavicius boldly experiments with whatever idea and gimmick he can manage, in an effort to make a different film, while remaining unhindered by any need to express anything in particular. The richness of scattered patches of ingenuity, combined with a so-so story and the absence of a main theme, makes the movie seem like a Frankenstein. Well, a Frankenstein with the best engineered arms and legs, but a Frankenstein nonetheless.
'The Artist' is a clever film, but remains one step away from greatness. Perhaps I'll watch it again, to admire the acting and the director's nostalgic originality and, more importantly, to find out what exactly the critics were impressed by.
One a scale from one to ten, I give 'The Artist' a 6.5.
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