THINQon : The Artist

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Julie Sabatier

The Artist

Latest Post: January 22, 2012 at 2:40 PM

27 followers

I don't know if this movie is still playing around, but if it does I highly recommend everyone to see it!
Jean Dujardin is of course a French favorite actor, very funny and charming, and the film itself is beautifully done. The director is very sensitive to filming beautifully, showing interesting angles and the shot of scenes are sort of "framed" in an old way, closer to paintings.
I won't tell here the plot, but it's a classic subject of the movies' world basculating from the silent to the speaking form, and on technology's huge impact on the artist's life, with little allusions to "Singing in the Rain."
I was thinking about that lost charm of the silent movie, when there was so much expression in the acting and in the faces. It seems to me that as technology develops and advances we are missing little by little, more and more, on expressivity. With the 3D technology on top of everything, movies are getting to be more about the effects than about the content, and this movie seemed to me to be a tear to the lost world and lost artistic capabilities in the field.

Films Discussed

The Artist

Reply to:

Edna Stern

January 16, 2012 at 11:23 PM

87 followers

Hi Julie,

I also liked the movie very much and thought it was very intelligently made. First of all, making a silent movie in 2012 - that was brilliant. Then when the “danger” of sound is introduced, in the silent scene and just afterwards when Dujardin goes back to his loge where suddenly things get a sound, we keep waiting from that moment on for sound and are even more aware of the silence.

The other thing this movie made me reflect on was sound and expressivity in the history of the piano. The technical aspect of the silent movies - the black and white and the certain mellowness to the picture which accompanies it, the need to express yourself without sound – all these reminded me of the difference between playing an old Bechstein from the 1930s vs. the latest Steinway. It’s as if the natural qualities of the mellowness and beauty of the shades of grey colors also had an impact on the directors and actors, in the same way the mellow sound of the Bechstein and his lightness was the reason we call the musicians of the time “the golden age” of classical music interpretation. The tools are directly related to the artistic end result.

The Artist is not an attempt to make a movie as if it was the 1930s as it is very much aware of the new technology and the new people who are watching it. It doesn’t fall into what may be called authentic music; it uses the tools and capabilities offered by the old technology as well as the new one to create something new which I personally find great. For example, after expecting sound we are offered a completely silent bedroom scene – he makes the silence heard, and at the same time expresses the emptiness in the person’s life. The movie shows how one can widen the expressive possibilities mixing old tools with the new.

What I mean is not to throw away the power of the 3D and new filming techniques/New Steinway D, but to use it in a wider sense without forgetting our historical heritage and using it for improving today’s art, as opposed to just using the effects for effects’ sake.

Music Discussed

The Golden Age of Piano

VLADIMIR DE PACHMANN, pianist ("Great Virtuosi of the Golden Age, Vol.3") -- CHOPIN, SCHUMANN & MEND

Reply to: or

George Browning, I like to play the flute.

In response to Edna Stern

January 22, 2012 at 12:44 PM

14 followers

SPOILER ALERT: I'll mention the last scene of the movie.
I wanted to add to your interpretation, Edna, the following.
When you say: "The movie shows how one can widen the expressive possibilities mixing old tools with the new." This gives a very nice description of the last scene of the movie where the old and the new mix in a common language. They mix with the pair dancing together, and they mix in the very end of the scene with the first time we hear a voice. The old tools can work with the new if they are adapted correctly.