The Artist

This French film played at the Chicago International Film Festival this year as its Closing Night film.  It stars Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo, as silent film stars in Hollywood.  The story is a little bit A Star is Born, a little bit Singin' In the Rain.  Dujardin, as popular star george Valentin (no doubt a play on Rudolf Valentino) has enjoyed a successful career as a leading man in silent films.  It is now the mid-1920s.  Bejo is pretty young thing Peppy Miller, hoping to make it big in Hollywood, and they have a "meet-cute" at a premiere.  Valentin, despite being married, is taken with her.  As her star rises, his falls, due to two key events of that time.


Peppy starts out in uncredited extras roles, such as a chorus girl, then with small roles as a maid, making her way up the ladder until she is the next coming thing and taking romantic and comedy lead roles.  Valentin, meanwhile, is stuck in his career and refuses to acknowledge the rising threat of talking movies, and thinks it is a fad that will disappear quickly.  When his studio producer (John Goodman) decides to change all of his output to talkies, Valentin stubbornly refuses to go along.  He decides to bankroll his own silent film projects.

Similarly, he refuses to acknowledge how unhappy his wife (Penelope Ann Miller) has become as his marriage disintegrates.  The only people who still believe in him are his trusty chauffeur/valet (James Cromwell), and of course Peppy, who understands Valentin's pride and helps him without his knowledge.  But his fortunes wane and he turns desperately to suicide when the second key event of the 1920s takes place--the stock market crash.

The film is in black and white and not only ABOUT silent movies, but IS a silent movie (mostly).  And since it is silent, the Hollywood locale is not hindered by the fact that its two leads are French, as they mouth their English dialog.  It does have elements of how silent films were made in the past, as well as keeping mostly to that style of film and story. Most of the funnier scenes are in the beginning parts of the film and plays off Dujardin's well-established comic chops (he is a very well known comic actor in France), whereas the middle and end are more melodramatic as the story becomes more serious.  But without the silent film element, the latter part of the film is pretty ordinary. Much of the music I believe is taken from scores of other Hollywood films from the 30s-50s. It is also pretty melodrmatic and while the storyline is dramatic and emotional, it is not quite that much so.

I did like that someone dared to try something different and not the same old romantic comedy that we are used to seeing.