What are the chances of the public at large flocking to see a French silent film, shot in black-and-white, set in 1920s Hollywood and starring two actors almost certainly unknown to them?
That’s the challenge facing The Artist, a new movie shot like a very old one. It’s hugely appealing – I’ve seen it at the Cannes and London film festivals, and both audiences sprang from their seats to applaud – yet its unique magic is hard to convey in words. I’ll merely say that it’s joyous and utterly lovely, it’s my favourite film of 2011, and anyone who cares for classic cinema will love it to bits.
Ushered into competition in Cannes at the last minute in May, it seemed to come out of nowhere, with no advance word about it. It has since been wildly acclaimed wherever it has played. Surprisingly, its creator, writer-director Michel Hazanavicius, was best known for two spoofs of Sixties spy films: OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006) and OSS 117: Lost in Rio (2009). They were amusing enough, but nothing in them suggested the tour de force that is The Artist.
What made Hazanavicius think that creating a silent black-and-white movie for a modern audience might be a good idea? “I think it’s about a form of expression that I personally love if I’m the audience,” he said. “It’s a really amazing experience to see a good silent movie.”
He proves the point. In The Artist, Jean Dujardin (a well-known TV comedian in France who played the comic spy OSS 117 twice for Hazanavicius) is George Valentin, a vain, swashbuckling Twenties silent movie idol in the Douglas Fairbanks mould, with slicked-back hair and a pencil moustache. The delightful Bérénice Béjo (who is married to Hazanavicius) plays effervescent Peppy Miller, an ambitious young extra, who flirts with George and wins his heart. Their romance hits trouble when his silent-screen charisma comes to seem outdated and his career takes a dive, while she becomes a star of the new talkies.
Other characters and situations feel familiar from old movies about Hollywood – a ruthless studio boss (John Goodman), George’s dissatisfied wife (Penelope Ann Miller) and his loyal chauffeur (James Cromwell). There’s an overweight cop, lavish movie-star homes, scenes on studio sets – and Uggy, George’s breathtakingly talented Jack Russell terrier, who does great tricks and follows his master everywhere.
At various points, The Artist may remind you of Singin’ in the Rain, A Star is Born, Sunset Boulevard and Astaire-Rogers films. Hazanavicius clearly knows his old movies inside out.
He’s also an eloquent advocate for silent film. “It’s a challenge, of course,” he told me. “But it makes the story more powerful, more poetic and lyrical. Language is useful, but just that, useful. Yet it reduces communication as well. When a baby who can’t speak smiles at you, it touches you differently from an adult’s smile. Even with people you love, you don’t always use words to express important things. When you don’t need to talk it’s really powerful, I think.”
We met at Cannes, where Dujardin was named best actor for his role as George. Hazanavicius, who is 44, was at pains to stress that the apparently effortless charm of The Artist did not come easily to him.
“The most challenging part for me was writing the movie,” he recalled. “Several times while I was writing it, I was depressed and sad. I thought, 'Nobody will like this.’ Then I’d take out the DVDs of Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights, and two FW Murnau films, City Girl and Sunrise. Those were the three silent movies I always looked at.
“City Lights especially made me feel good. I’d think to myself, 'I’d love to approach that form of expression.’ That film gave me the courage to continue. I can watch it 100 times, and I’ll always cry afterwards. It’s not about understanding, it’s about mood.”
Hazanavicius first considered the idea of making a silent movie more than a decade ago, and first told Dujardin and Béjo about it in 2006 . “We thought it was madness and never imagined such a project could be conceived,” says Béjo. And Dujardin’s reaction? “I didn’t believe him. You never know if Michel is serious.”
Still, both actors liked the idea, as did Hazanavicius’s French producer Thomas Langmann, who urged him to work on it. But having the idea was one thing – making it a reality was another.
“I soon realised I’d need to justify my choice with the right story,” he recalled, “to make people realise that the form and the story are [indivisible]. I could have done a silent spy movie, or something else light and amusing. But then audiences wouldn’t understand why it was silent. They’d need a justification for my choice.”
Hazanavicius used a partly-French, partly American-crew and shot the film in Los Angeles, sometimes using historic Hollywood locations. For example, the house in which Peppy lives once she becomes successful was for four years the home of Mary Pickford, one of the first international stars of the silent era.
The Artist looks set to become a huge hit, though Hazanavicius may revert to talking pictures in future. But his love for silent movies is unquenchable.
“I think sound came too early,” he said, a little mournfully. “For most directors of that time, silent movies were a Utopia, a universal language anyone could understand.
“Some of them – Fritz Lang, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Josef von Sternberg – went on to make beautiful talking movies. But I think most of them regret the passing of the silent era. I’m sure a lot of directors and actors would have loved it to continue, but the studios didn’t give them the choice.”
For his part, Hazanavicius is happy to have executed what seemed like a crazy notion: “I’m proud the film exists,” he said modestly, “and that it resembles the idea I first had of it.”
'The Artist’ opens on December 30
