The Artist
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It’s extremely rare for an actor in a foreign language film to win an Oscar. Marion Cottilard managed it a few years ago for La Vie en Rose and the gasps around the auditorium can still be heard if you listen carefully enough. But to walk away with a little gold man for a silent movie? Forget about it, right? Possibly not as the lead actor in writer-director Michel Hazanavicius’s The Artist is Jean Dujardin and he’s the current darling of the Best Actor category, even though nomination day is still two months away.
Set in 1920’s Hollywood, Dujardin is the silent movie superstar George Valentin, who must confront the reality that the talkies will surely sound the death knell for his career. Meanwhile, for Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), the advent of change promises the exact opposite and their interlinked destinies drives The Artist forward, turning it into a significant piece of work.
How significant? According to The New Yorker, “What Hazanavicius has wrought is damnably clever, but not cute; less like an arch conceit and more like the needle-sharp recollection of a dream.” The New York Observer amusingly observes that “The Artist is so wonderful that the audience applauds everything, including the dog.” And TIME’s Mary Corliss concludes that, “With supreme confidence and an informed, infectious fondness for his subject, writer-director Michel Hazanavicius manages to embrace contradictions and then resolve them with supreme comic grace.” If Dujardin does win Best Actor next year, the irony will be complete. The reason? Messrs. Clooney, Pitt and DiCaprio will be left silent in their seats.
PHOTOS: Silent movie legend Charlie Chaplin
NewsFeed’s Flicks Pick: In what might be the first and only four-way tie in Friday Flicks history, we think all the above movies are worthy of your attention, as they all pay homage to the past for differing reasons. On weeks like this, the future of film looks bright.