Film review: Enjoy the silents in the âThe Artistâ
Hollywood doesnât make very many films about itself, let alone paeans to its ancient history. So how can we explain two such titles opening simultaneously â on the very same day â last month? I swore I wouldnât use the hack phrase âlove letter to the cinema,â even though itâs exactly appropriate for both Martin Scorseseâs wonderful âHugoâ (reviewed here last week) and Michel Hazanaviciusâs even more wonderful âThe Artist.â
So how about âfan letter to filmâ? âBouquet for the big screenâ? âMash note to the moviesâ? Whatever.
Both releases deal with filmmakers who are stranded in the wake of industry upheavals, left behind after the paradeâs gone by. In âHugo,â itâs the real French pioneer Georges Melies, who during cinemaâs first decade saw possibilities in film that others couldnât have conceived of, only to be left behind when the new narrative techniques of D.W. Griffith and others became the ruling aesthetic. In âThe Artist,â itâs the fictional George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), a star who looks like the young Fredric March and acts like Douglas Fairbanks, and who â unlike the real Fairbanks â refuses to accept the arrival of talkies. (Admission: Counting âThe Artistâ as a âHollywoodâ â or even American â film may be a stretch. Its minimal dialogue is in English, and it was shot here, with a largely American cast, but itâs technically a French production, whose writer/director and two stars are all French.)
Commercial movies barely acknowledge their history, perhaps fearing (correctly?) that modern audiences â viewing silent films, and even early talkies, through irony-clad eyes â will appreciate them only as camp. The most recent major film to deal with the silent years was âChaplinâ (1992), but even that was centrally about the man, not the medium.
The last big flurry of movies about the era was in the mid-â70s: âInsertsâ (1974), âThe Wild Partyâ (1975), âNickelodeonâ (1976) and, of course, Mel Brooksâ âSilent Movieâ (1976). Roughly 20 years earlier came âSunset Boulevardâ (1950) and âSinginâ in the Rainâ (1952), both about the painful transition from silents to talkies. And another 20 years before that â during, and in the wake of, that transition â were âShow Peopleâ (1928), âWhat Price Hollywood?â (1932) and the latterâs kind-of-remake, âA Star Is Bornâ (1937). (Curiously, all three of these periods had versions of âA Star Is Bornâ; but the last two donât really figure in this argument, since they were contemporary updates.)
It would be simple to say itâs just a cyclical thing, coming around every 20 years or so, but that strikes me as too easy; and, besides, it would have suggested a period of similar activity in the â90s. I think thereâs something more meaningful going on, though it may also sound simplistic.
These flurries all came in the aftermath of huge technological and/or business upheavals for the industry. The first, of course, was the coming of sound. The second was not only the arrival of free entertainment on television, but also the Paramount decree, which forced the studios to divest themselves of their theater chains. The third was the âdeathâ of old Hollywood and of the studio system; and the anxiety caused by the success of âEasy Riderâ (1969) and the birth of the ânewâ Hollywood.
And now industry rules and assumptions are being upended by the greatest business challenge since the Paramount decree â the digital revolution and its innumerable possibilities. The panic over digital piracy is only part of the story. Thereâs also the constantly growing and mutating bundle of new distribution channels. Cable and home video have been joined by Video on Demand and online streaming and smartphone networks. Maybe, at some point down the road, space-saving USB drives will replace clunky optical discs. Itâs enough to make aging studio execsâ heads spin ⊠and ache ⊠and even roll.
The world they know is disappearing as surely as Meliesâ magic cinema a century ago and the special beauty of silent movies a few decades later. What better time to look back to a comforting past? The guardians of todayâs Hollywood had better learn to appreciate the rusting scrap heap of cinemaâs past; theyâll be joining it soon enough.
ANDY KLEIN is the film critic for Marquee. He can also be heard on âFilmWeekâ on KPCC-FM (89.3).