The Artist won the Academy Award
this year in the best film category and rightly so. It is a silent film. Well, you must define the word ‘silent’.
This film recreates the humble origins of a great art form called cinema. Right
from the costumes, lighting, the props to music to the intertitles (subtitles
in the modern terminology) everything in this film resemble those pristine
silent films.
However, there is a difference. The
difference is that this silent film is made in modern times. The story, of
course, revolves round a famous hero George Valentine (Jean Dujardin). He is a
well known artist of silent films. However, when the talkies begin, he has this
struggle to change over or move with the times. His initial resistance only
adds to his miseries, as all the efforts that he makes to continue the
traditional film making fails. Finally, of course, the film has a happy ending
as he gets converted and moves according to times, adapting himself.
Film director - Michel Hazanavicius
Is it not an irony, then, that a
film with such a theme is made in the modern age and with no speech? That is
where, perhaps, the director Michel Hazanavicius is
making a statement. If the film indeed worked and made huge profits in an age
of noisy films all over, it is a reminder to all film lovers, in the words of
film theorist Rudolf Arnheim, that film is first and foremost a visual medium. It
is the visuals that must convey the meaning and not so much the dialogues and
the words. Words and dialogues are basically the life blood of drama.
Hopefully we shall
see many more silent films in the days to come.
- Melwyn Pinto SJ
Artist is one film which reminded everyone the charm that silent films once had. Brilliant acting by Jean Dujardin, this film is a must watch for all film lovers!!!!!
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