The Artist (2011)

The artist is a 2011 French comedy-drama film that is produced in the style of a black and white silent film which is said to be set between 1927 and 1932 in Hollywood.

The film is directed by Michel Hazanavicius and follows a relationship between a young rising actress named peppy and an older male actor, who has acted in silent films for years, named George.

The film is based around the fact that silent films are going out of fashion, and are set to be replaced by more modern films that involve sound. The main character George has a hard time of accepting that its going to happen and wants no part in it until something out of the ordinary happens which in my opinion is the best scene in the film with the use of camerawork and body language to tell the audience how he is feeling at that point in time, that makes him see films in a different light along with the help of peppy who assists on his journey of seeing films in a more modern way instead of his old beliefs on them.

When it comes to films, I’ve never really enjoyed films that have no sound or are in black and white, as I believe the storylines aren’t that good when it does not include speech but, one positive about this film is the fact that it does include background music which I believe does help the film out a lot when it comes to following the storyline as the music fits with what is being shown on screen.

Another thing I picked up on was when comparing the other black and white films I have seen, the body language is a lot clearer, maybe due to it was created in 2011 which makes it more of a modern version of silent films even though it’s set in the 19th century, but I do believe this is the better one, but it’s still not the type of film I would choose to watch as it’s not for my intended audience and the storyline is not the easiest to understand until you get the part of the film where George mentions his opinion on the Industry moving forward then, you get a better idea of the plot of the film.

Overall it’s a film I would recommend if you need to watch a silent film as it’s not bad when you get an idea of the plot of the story and get use to the fact that there is no speech for majority of the film but I would say that it’s not a film I would watch again as I believed it to be a little boring at times but the overall film does have a nice plot about the industry which I find interesting, and it’s not a genre of film I like but doesn’t mean you may not like it.