The Artist

THE ARTIST               B+                  

France  Belgium  (100 mi)  2011  d:  Michel Hazanavicius         Official site [ca]

Despite the unapologetically nostalgic tone of a silent era film that accentuates Hollywood cinema in its golden age, along with its dashingly handsome and debonair stars, like swaggering silent star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), this film, along with Scorsese’s holiday release HUGO (2011), both eloquently pay tribute to a magical era of early cinema.  Set in the late 20’s and early 30’s, coinciding with the SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952) shift from silent to talking pictures, the camera initially adores matinee idol Valentin with cameras and news items following his every move, living in a posh Hollywood mansion with a wealthy socialite wife Doris (Penelope Ann Miller) who’s too bored with show business that she spends her idle time marking up movie posters with graffiti-like mustaches and goatees, her caustic comment on the whole world of entertainment, rarely uttering a word to her husband.  This dysfunctional portrait of marriage is a satiric comment on Myrna Loy and William Powell’s supposed marital bliss in THE THIN MAN (1934), right down to a theatrical scene-stealing pet dog Uggie, who is a stand-in for Asta and all but steals the picture.  Valentin’s breakfast table scene mimicking the dog’s every move is a classic silent era comedy routine, but his wife couldn’t be bothered to even notice.  Valentin never lacks for a smile, exuding confidence and generosity from the outset, beautifully expressed in a spontaneous moment at a publicity appearance where he is accidentally bumped by a woman who drops her purse while standing in a cordoned off crowd of fans and well-wishers, where at first he expresses rude indignation at the insult, unwanted physical contact, but when he sees what a lovely and charming woman it is (Argentinean actress living in France, Bérénice Bejo, who happens to be the director's spouse), he immediately turns into the gallant gentleman, where their pictures are all over the Hollywood tabloids the next day. 

From this simple coincidence, A STAR IS BORN (1937, 1954, 1976), so to speak, as the lovely lady is Peppy Miller who suddenly lands a job working with Valentin on a picture as a chorus line dancer, nearly thrown off the set by movie mogul John Goodman, the cigar chomping movie producer who blames her for the little stunt which took the actual movie being promoted off the front page, but he relents when Valentin insists she belongs in the picture.  While the two obviously have chemistry, their careers are on different paths, as talkies are the new thing, introducing ambitious young talent like Ms. Miller, while Valentin’s career is all but over, though he refuses to believe he can’t draw an adoring public.  When the stock market crashes and the Depression hits, people show little interest in the way things used to be, despite Valentin’s insistence that he’s an “artist,” not some puppet on a string.  With his marriage on the rocks, his career in ruins, his fortune lost, he becomes a sad and destitute man, still unable to comprehend the chaotic madness of noise associated with talking pictures.  His much more organized silent life seems enchantingly simple, where all he has to do is perform before adoring fans to win their hearts, where he’s a natural born charmer.  Making matters more interesting, the film is actually silent in Valentin’s world, where sound is slowly and cleverly introduced, which others accept, where they eventually live in a world of sound, but Valentin and Uggie remain steadfastly silent.  The film effortlessly walks a fine line between the two worlds, where the unrecognized and distant love between the two stars remains confined to silence. 

The real magic of this film is an old-fashioned romance set against a backdrop of a continual stream of homages to different film eras, where Valentin begins as a 1920’s swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks hero, where his Chaplinesque comic routines or enthralling Fred Astaire dance numbers are utterly captivating, but when his luck fades, he’s a down on his luck fading movie star lost in the decaying psychological cobwebs of SUNSET BLVD. (1950), filtered through the alcoholic doldrums of meaningless despair from THE LOST WEEKEND (1945).  What’s truly remarkable is actor Jean Dujardin’s range of ability in wordlessly conveying each of these tumultuous emotional turns so effortlessly, where his eminent demeanor never slips out of character.  Despite the predictable narrative arc of falling from grace to living a life in shambles, he carries himself with an immensely appealing dignity throughout, where the scenes with Bérénice Bejo simply sparkle and couldn’t be more scintillating, becoming heartbreakingly tender at times, bringing needed poignancy to their relationship.  Labelled crowd pleasing and lighthearted entertainment by critics, that would be misleading, as this is scrupulously well put together, painting a particularly tragic note to fame, which like youth, is fleeting.  The director combines a rare combination of cleverness and craft, where the extraordinary personalities of the superb talent onscreen win out in the end.  While the relatively unknown director is French, one can’t help but think of fellow countryman Jacques Tati, whose enduring silent comedy was set entirely during the unpredictable modern landscape of the present.  Something of a living, iconic anachronism, he spent everything he earned back into his own unfailingly unique cinematic art, crushed by the lack of success at the box office, probably thinking he was something of a failure at the end of his life, while today he is revered as a rare comic genius.  One might have wished for a special tribute paid to Tati, instead there's a curious debt of thanks to Argentinean soccer superstar Diego Maradona. 

The Illusionist

THE ILLUSIONIST                                            B+                   

France  Great Britain  (90 mi)  2010  d:  Sylvain Chomet 

Rather than pay homage to Jacques Tati like Sylvain Chomet’s last film, this one is adapted from an actual Tati screenplay that features an animated version of the legendary character Monsieur Hulot himself, which creates something of a controversy as it perhaps mis-identifies which missing daughter he was attempting to recognize, as the story closely resembles Tati’s relationship with his own daughter that he neglected (Sophie Tatischeff), no doubt due to his obsession with his career, but also points to his firstborn, an illegitimate daughter (Helga Marie-Jeanne Schiel) born 4 years earlier outside his marriage, a girl he all but abandoned, as she was raised in an orphanage.  In 1955 when Tati wrote the script, Helga would be age 13, and Sophie, 9, though he continued to tinker with the script for another four years.  The script was actually handed to the director by Sophie in 2000, two years before she died, and the film is dedicated to her, which the family of Helga feels is a major oversight.  (See: The secret of Jacques Tati - Roger Ebert's Journal and also from The Guardian:  Jacques Tati's lost film reveals family's pain and The Telegraph:  Jacques Tati's ode to his illegitimate daughter - Telegraph)  Set in the late 1950’s, he’s known as the great magician Tatischeff, carrying around in his pocket a circus poster showing him doing his act which he diplays at various theaters around town where he performs to an ever dwindling audience that is becoming non-existent.  His music hall act is charmingly adorable, where he pulls a rabbit that bites out of a hat, an animal that prefers to poke its head out prematurely, and performs all sorts of miracles, but few are interested anymore, replaced by a hilarious sequence of British rock ‘n’ rollers who refuse to leave the stage, performing an endless series of narcissistic encores until the house empties afterwords with the exception of an elderly woman and her bespectacled, ice-cream eating young son who keeps checking his watch. 

What’s marvelous about this film is how it’s perceived through multiple layers, one of which includes extended Miyazaki-like travel sequences, always accompanied by a sublime musical score which was written by the director himself, moving from the spectacular Paris venues to obscure Scottish pubs during the rainy season, eventually settling for awhile in Edinburgh, as Tatischeff spends his life on the road searching for new venues that will hire him, many with the help of his fellow performers who keep offering him their business cards.  Another layer is the presence of a stowaway, a young girl who attaches herself to the great magician like a father figure.  Though they stay together at a run down hotel, this girl has a life of her own, following her curiosity, spending her days roaming through the city.  One of the more wonderful sequences is when she makes soup, which Tatischeff belatedly discovers is rabbit soup, where he looks around frantically for his missing rabbit.  But in this scene she generously feeds other vaudevillians staying in the hotel as well, some close to starvation, as it is filled with performers who are at poverty’s edge and are later seen facing even more dire circumstances. 

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this film is the autobiographical aspect, as Tati himself considered the material too personal, thinking himself a failure both as a performer and as a father, yet that’s precisely what makes such an intimate work so endearing, where at one point Tatischeff cleverly sneaks into a theater that is playing MON ONCLE (1958) where, as an animated figure, he’s stupefied at seeing himself in real life.  The magician’s act is always performed with the utmost professionalism and grace, even when he’s forced to become a department store live window mannequin, selling women’s perfume and brassieres, making them appear and disappear.  In the same way, Tatischeff refuses to disappoint the young girl, who is convinced that as a magician he can make anything appear out of thin air, where her fascination is based on her gullibility and naiveté.  But the harsh reality is that time is passing by these charming vaudeville acts and money is hard to come by, especially when his act closes as quickly as it begins, so he spends more time away from her in search of work.  There’s an underlying pathos in every scene, all near wordless, as the dark tone and bleak existence in the world is never sugar coated.  In fact, much of this resembles early Chaplin when his Little Tramp is desperately searching for work or for a bite to eat.  By the end of the film Tatischeff has sadly become obsolete, perhaps even to the girl who is discovering her own life and her own independence.