# The Artist - Black & White Silent Film **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 12, 2011, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-artist-black-white-silent-film/605943 "2011-12-12T19:13:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-artist-black-white-silent-film/605943/61 "2012-02-23T15:52:30Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > David Denby has a long piece in this week’s _New Yorker_ about how _The Artist_ sucks, Jean Dujardin sucks, John Gilbert sucked, and everyone who is not Louise Brooks can just go \*fuck \*themselves. I better buy this, then. One of my dogs peed on the floor last night and I might need something to mop it up with if it happens again. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-artist-black-white-silent-film/605943/62 "2012-02-23T15:57:17Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > I better buy this, then. One of my dogs peed on the floor last night and I might need something to mop it up with if it happens again. “Mr. Denby, I found your article very absorbing!” ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-artist-black-white-silent-film/605943/63 "2012-02-23T17:05:10Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > David Denby has a long piece in this week’s _New Yorker_ about how _The Artist_ sucks, Jean Dujardin sucks, John Gilbert sucked, and everyone who is not Louise Brooks can just go \*fuck \*themselves. Hardly quite [fair](http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/02/27/120227crat_atlarge_denby?mbid=gnep), **Eve**? Denby spends about a page and a half talking about _The Artist_ in a four-page article on the silent movie genre and what has happened to it since the talkies came in, including the current tribute films _The Artist_ and _Hugo_. He doesn’t think _The Artist_ is any big deal but he certainly didn’t say it “sucks”. > [@David Denby](#): > > After seeing Michel Hazanavicius’s exuberant and playful French silent movie “The Artist" […] > > In “The Artist,” there is nothing close to the intensity of the work of those actors. The movie’s principals—Jean Dujardin, as George Valentin, a swaggering silent-movie idol who is ruined by the advent of sound, and Bérénice Bejo, as Peppy Miller, the girl from nowhere who loves him and becomes a star herself—are eager, likable performers. But both characters, and both actors, move in a straight line in each scene; they stay within a single mood. The great silent actors did so much more. […] > > “The Artist,” a likable spoof, doesn’t acknowledge that world of heroic ambition and madness—it’s bland, sexless, and too simple. For all its genuine charm, it left me restless and dissatisfied, dreaming of those wilder and grander movies. > We should be happy that “The Artist” exists at all, of course. […] > > In the annual, routinized procession of contemporary movies—thrillers, teen horror films, digital spectacles—“The Artist” stands out as a fresh piece of work. Hazanavicius plays with our sense of how odd silence is; he intrudes sound like a stealthy predator into the bizarre, immaculate world of noiselessness. In the movie’s most striking sequence, Valentin has a nightmare: he dreams of a sounding world, but he cannot speak—his screams come out as dry heaves. But, apart from a few such brilliant bursts of invention, “The Artist” is an amiably accomplished stunt that pats silent film on the head and then escorts it back into the archive. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-artist-black-white-silent-film/605943/64 "2012-02-23T17:10:59Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Hardly quite [fair](http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/02/27/120227crat_atlarge_denby?mbid=gnep), **Eve**? _Eh_. What I took away is basically Denby thinks everyone except Louise Brooks needs to be boiled in oil and thrown from a cliff. He certainly called John Gilbert untalented, which means he doesn’t seem to have seen many John Gilbert films–he also repeated the “high squeaky voice ended his career” urban legend, which caps \*that \*globe. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-artist-black-white-silent-film/605943/65 "2012-02-23T17:17:35Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > Well, David Denby, aged 68-69 according to wikipedia, can just go jump off a cliff and fuck himself on the way down. > [@Sigmagirl](#): > > I better buy this, then. One of my dogs peed on the floor last night and I might need something to mop it up with if it happens again. > [@Eve](#): > > What I took away is basically Denby thinks everyone except Louise Brooks needs to be boiled in oil and thrown from a cliff. Hmmmm. > [@David Denby](#): > > I thought as well of Douglas Fairbanks’s satirical gymnastic shenanigans, of Greta Garbo’s heavy-lidded sullenness, of Emil Jannings’s tragic despair […] > > I caught King Vidor’s “The Patsy” (1928), starring Marion Davies, who was slandered during her lifetime as a no-talent plaything of William Randolph Hearst (she was his mistress for three decades). But Davies was actually something like the Carol Burnett or the Kristen Wiig of her day, an immensely likable comedienne and satirist. […] > > Even among the silent overactors, there were hams and there were hams, and the best of them, like John Barrymore and Lon Chaney, were so detailed and idiosyncratic in their miming that they could come close—at least, in grotesque versions—to the wonder that Balázs hoped for. […] > > Lillian Gish, for all her justly celebrated spirituality, had subversive moments, too. In “The Scarlet Letter” (1926), made in Hollywood under the direction of the Swedish master Victor Sjöström, Gish’s Hester Prynne rips off the scarlet “A,” removes her cap, shakes loose a magnificent pile of hair, and, just for a second, primps. She is no less dignified and brave for that moment; the touch of vanity eliminates the distance between her and us. […] Sorry, I’m not getting the “everyone except Louise Brooks needs to be boiled in oil and thrown from a cliff” theme there. Personally, although I thought _The Artist_ was great, I’m not inclined to hate on Denby for having a more lukewarm opinion of it. I thought his comments were fair and his analysis of the uniqueness of the art of silent movies was very interesting. ---
**Author:** ![infinitii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e8c25b/32.png) [@infinitii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/infinitii)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-artist-black-white-silent-film/605943/66 "2012-02-23T17:29:26Z")
I’ve looked in this thread several times and I keep forgetting I have an amusing anecdote related to it! I saw the film last year during the New Orleans Film Festival and John Goodman was in attendance (and just across the aisle from me, as it happens). But he kept talking to the person next to him and getting texts on his phone (which was NOT on vibrate, I heard every beep and bloop!) – wow. As for the movie, it was enjoyable, but it’s not really my kind of thing ( **Bellflower** and **Sucker Punch** were my faves from last year). It’ll probably win all the Oscars this year though. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-artist-black-white-silent-film/605943/67 "2012-02-23T17:34:24Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Hardly quite [fair](http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/02/27/120227crat_atlarge_denby?mbid=gnep), **Eve**? Hmm, he calls the film and leading actors likeable. I take it back. He can throw himself off a very small cliff to a soft landing, and he doesn’t have to fuck himself on the way down. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-artist-black-white-silent-film/605943/68 "2012-03-07T19:29:56Z")
I saw _The Artist_ this week and I thought the movie was good as an homage to silent movies but George Valentin’s character wasn’t clear enough. I think it would have been a better movie if they had based him on John Gilbert - make him somebody that was unable to switch to talkies rather than just unwilling to. Because all the agonizing we see him going through during the movie is undercut at the end when we see him apparently decide, _“Screw this. I’ll just go ahead and make a talkie after all.”_ It makes his earlier suffering look whiny instead of tragic. It could have worked if they had made more of an emphasis on his pride. It was hinted at but never said that he was too proud to switch to talkies. But they should have shown that that pride was a cover for fear. As long as Valentin refused to make a talkie, he could tell himself it was his choice and retain his pride. But if he tried to make a talkie and failed, then he would have nothing left. But this point was never made in the movie. I also wonder if the final scene was a subtle shot at Hollywood in general. The American movie system is pretty parochial - American movies play all over the world but American audiences don’t want to watch foreign movies. Hazanavicius may have been making a point about the difficulty a European actor faces in Hollywood. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-artist-black-white-silent-film/605943.md?page=3)