The Artist (2011)

The Artist is a film which came out back in 2011 directed by Michel Hazanavicius. It is very rare and different for a black and white silent film to come out in such an era of film making where technology is only improving and getting better by the year. Before watching this film, I really wasn’t expecting much as I am not a big fan of black and white films and much prefer more modern films. I also wasn’t expecting much with it being the first silent film that I have ever watched so this was all very new for me.

The plot of this film for me is quite hard to understand with there being no sound and just music. With George Valentin being the king of silent film, he meets Peppy Miller who is an actor in the industry at the same time. George Valentin is obsessed with his style of making music and struggles to admit that change is happening and that talking in films is something that was coming into fashion. Although this was Peppy’s rise to fame, it was Valentin’s downfall meaning their careers are going in opposite directions. I understand the film a bit at certain points but then it is pretty hard to keep up with, making it a bit hard to follow at times by only watching the acting and there being no talking and just the odd piece of text to display what was being said. However, I would say it is pretty believable and if you are looking at it from a point of view where if it applies to silent film conventions, I would say both yes and no. I would say this because it is a silent film for about 98% of the film until the very end where there is dialogue and conversations between people.

To be completely honest, I didn’t enjoy the film that much with it simply not being my genre and with it also being in black and white. The idea of a silent film sounded quite interesting to me before watching it, leaving me wondering how it would play out and whether or not I would enjoy the film. In the end I didn’t enjoy it and couldn’t get used to seeing the character talk and there being no sound coming out.

A scene I particularly enjoyed was the scene near the end where George has the gun and is about to do something bad with it and the switches back and forth between him and Peppy driving throughout this scene really build the tension. It makes the viewer anticipate and keeps them on edge wondering if Peppy will reach him in time. Also, the use of the non-diegetic sound (music) is smart as it gets louder and faster when an intense moment is happening, making the viewer intrigued and attached to what is happening in that moment.

I would only recommend this film for someone to watch purely for the fact that it is something different to what they would normally watch. If I was basing it off an entertainment view of recommending someone to watch it, then I probably would not recommend it personally.