For those of you who haven’t heard of Michel Hazanavicius’s ‘The Artist’, first of all, we hope the Antarctic wasn’t too cold and that your recent reconnection with civilisation ran smoothly. Secondly, it’s one of the best films you’ll see this year.
It’s a phrase that’s tossed around a lot in booming baritone during high budget movie trailers, but The Artist genuinely is the film of 2012, bestowed upon us before most people had even recovered from their New Year hangovers. It’s revitalised a long-forgotten genre that until now had sat at the fringes of cinematic memory but has it really ushered in a new dawn for the Silent Film in the wake of the flashy 3D fad?
When we heard about Liverpool theatregoers demanding their money back in outrage at being ‘tricked’ into watching a (gasp) Silent Film in reduced screen format, we were pretty shocked. We may have even muffled a pretentious sniff up on our high horses of film criticism, disgusted at their uncultured ignorance as we prophesized Oscar Nominations and slyly slid our discounted student cinema tickets out of sight. But thinking about it, the whilst The Artist really is a great film and asking for your money back seems extreme, the Liverpool public have a bit of a point. Why go back? We’ve made so many leaps in the world of cinematic entertainment, from silence to sound, monochrome to colour, 2D to 3D – why now obliterate all of these and return to a world where expression is limited to a small screen format with absolutely no dialogue?
I would love to see ‘Avatar: The Silent Movie.’ Genuinely I would. But thinking about it, would it really be that different to its Technicolor counterpart? Ok, the world wouldn’t look as stunning with its bright plants and utopian skyline, but the exaggerated expressions of the N’avi, complete with the emphasized physical gesture of ‘I see you’ is not that different to the exaggerated acting styles of the silent movie greats. Then you have the characters: the hero, the love interest and the villain we love to hate – just picture a black and white Parker Selfridge storming through the science lab, angry mouth opening and shutting like an enraged goldfish as he orders the destruction of the Tree of Souls whilst Jake and Grace look on in horror, hands at their mouths…. It’s not that different from Cameron’s reality.
This then led me to wonder, should the medium of silent films or even black and white films, really be viewed as a rare surprise in an industry obsessed with the latest special effects. Should Hollywood start to branch back out into the medium which created it, moving away from the movies based purely on special effects (let’s not lie, Avatar wasn’t exactly acclaimed for its acting), and onto movies which concentrate purely on talent. Silent movies are an extreme to this idea sure, but with the popularity of The Artist we can see that audiences still enjoy quality silent movies now, as they did in the twenties, with stars such as Garbo, Chaplin and Gilbert, as much in the global spotlight as speaking actors now.
Let’s hope that the European love for silent films, which led to Hazanavicius’s coming up with a plot that far outshone many of the main stream blockbusters of the year, carries on and that the acclaim from both critics and audiences alike (excluding those Leed’s viewers who must have been living in a hole), leads to Hollywood opening up its eyes and realising that audiences are no longer attracted to movies that provide a mode of escapism through fancy special effects and 3D glasses which, to be honest, I find exceedingly annoying. Rather that they concentrate on providing a mode of escapism for the viewer through an excellent story and brilliant actors, such as The Artist provided. Personally I hope this will not be the last silent film made for our generation, though I still can’t believe it’s the first.
Some facts on Silent Films:
- The first time ever that people actually paid money to see a movie was at Koster & Bial’s Music Hall in New York City was on the 20 April, 1896 aka Shakespeare’s Birthday.
- The silent movie was created by Louis Le Prince in 1888.
- The first ever film company arrived in Los Angeles in 1907.
- Average length of a movie in 1910: 3 reels, approx. 30 minutes.
- Average feature film budget in 1913: $13,000.