Banana Scoop

One deserves the Oscar, the other deserves a Pawscar

Did I mention this movie was a silent movie? Only a billion times right? This brings me to another reason that The Artist is just such a fantastic movie. The story and characters had to be developed through silent means: body language and facial expressions. All melodrama is very welcome here and is very reminiscent of Broadway acting. All film buffs would simply go crazy over how much film history is embedded into this movie as compared to me as a non-film student that is still going bonkers over it. Dialogue is only interpreted through text walls and inferences. That’s partially what makes this movie so mesmerizing and magical. Despite barely a word being said, we as the audience have a greater understanding of what’s going on than a lot of the movies being released today. And there’s just enough left to our own interpretation to fill in any empty spaces without being too lost. It’s filling these spaces that brings us closer to the movie and allowing it to more to us than just a one and half hour film. It’s difficult to describe a scene where there’s a back and forth dialogue and we only get about 4 words out of it in the form of a text wall and I highly recommend you see it yourself to fully grasp the impact of it.

On a stylish level, there are a couple of key scenes that just simply blow your mind. Forget the magic of the ending for a second and let’s go over some key points: The moment where George actually ‘hears’ things. The drunk ‘little George vs. big George’, the silence of the clapping. I could go on and on where my brain simply picked up on amazing and interesting tid bits. I wish in all honesty I could do a live blog and just tell you all the times I could hear my own heart beat when the film fell truly silent. Music and score of a movie is far more important in films like these than other films. Primarily having jazzy tunes that embody the 1920s, ranging from dance inspiring medleys to drinking alone songs of sadness, The Artist has a ton of tracks that are all worthy of notoriety.

There's a clear reason she is 3 of the 4 images I've chosen for this review. Love.

Overall, The Artist has changed my opinion of silent films and all movies far before my time. I will make an even harder effort now to watch oldies helmed by the great Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo. Be sure to keep up with me and definitely try and get your hands on a screening of this movie before Oscar night so you can understand what Dujardin and producer Thomas Langmann have to say when they take home those statues. Spoiler: Neat fact, I tweeted this when I was done: “My future wife and I WILL dance the number at the end of #TheArtist. This is non-negotiable and counts as what I consider a ‘deal-breaker’.”

5/5 Stars

Don’t click unless you’ve seen the movie, spoilertastic.

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