The Last Movie I Saw

I found The Artist, directed by Michel Hazanavicius and starring Jean Dujardin and Bereniece Bejo (seen above), to be totally engrossing and entertaining-- evidently a common response. The film has gotten great reviews, and a number of award nominations, which are well-deserved. It's a real crowd-pleaser, but I wonder if there's anything more that can be taken from its success. What I mean is that while it is in many ways unique to modern filmgoers-- both dialogue-free and in black and white-- it really doesn't offer anything original. Don't get me wrong, it was a kick to watch a story unfold entirely through the visuals, and I wouldn't mind if that became more of a staple of contemporary movies (even if they don't go to this extreme). But for anyone with even a little knowledge about the first half century of the cinema, there's really nothing new here. The story is a mash-up of Singing in the Rain and A Star is Born, while many of the visual elements remind me of classic King Vidor or Buster Keaton bits from movies that came out in the 1920s. I'm not trying to be overly critical here-- Hazanavicius has a real knack for homage, and it goes without saying that most people today have never seen a silent movie from the 1920s, so maybe he opens the door for some discovery of the classics by those charmed by his movie. But just as I doubt the success of this film will inspire his contemporaries to adopt some of its style, I'm also doubtful that too many folks will follow it up by going out to find a Douglas Fairbanks DVD. That's a shame, because as the Dujardin character recognizes, something special was lost when movies adopted sound. I mean, why couldn't silents and talkies have co-existed, allowing creators with different strengths to tell their stories in different ways? I know the short answer to that is money (and lowest common denominator expectations), but it's kind of a tragedy that an artform could so freely and knowingly be subverted (at least Chaplin tried to keep the silent aesthetic alive for awhile). So now The Artist comes along and it's treated as a gimmick; an effective gimmick, but ultimately just a gimmick. That's too bad, because its a worthy addition to a pretty substantial tradition, just one that's been largely forgotten for the past 80 years. One other thing that I wanted to be sure to mention about the film: the dog in it is great-- the best canine performance on film since Asta's heyday in the 1930s (and believe me, I can't offer a higher compliment to a human actor).