Literally the kind of movie they just don’t make anymore, Michel Hazanavicius’ French-sponsored charmer “The Artist’’ is a gorgeous black-and-white love letter to silent Hollywood with old-fashioned English intertitles and just a single line of audible (English) dialogue.
An exuberant Jean Dujardin brilliantly plays George Valentin, a dashing action star — Douglas Fairbanks Sr. springs to mind — who stubbornly refuses to act in talking pictures after they become the standard in 1929.
Parting ways with his longtime studio boss (John Goodman), George produces and directs himself in a hilariously hokey silent jungle melodrama.
The film bombs, and Valentin loses practically everything — including literally his shirt, as well as a wife (Penelope Ann Miller) who mocks him — following the stock market crash.
Meanwhile, Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) — a fan he helped get a job as a movie extra after she kissed him outside a premiere — has risen through the studio ranks to become an early-talkie sensation as a dancing flapper (à la Joan Crawford).
She wants to help her former mentor, but the proud George won’t hear of it — especially after she mocks silent-style acting in an interview.
In a story that’s closer to “A Star is Born’’ than “Singin’ in the Rain,” George refuses Peppy’s overtures, even after he’s forced to reluctantly fire his fiercely loyal chauffeur (James Cromwell), who has gone without a salary after a year.
George, who’s been hitting the booze hard, finally hits rock bottom and tries to kill himself by setting fire to his old films.
I won’t say more about the plot — except to note that George still has a Jack Russell terrier who gives the greatest animal performance in a movie that I have ever seen.
Dujardin — who also starred in a couple of French “James Bond” spoofs for director Hazanavicius and won the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival — is a gifted physical comedian who is equally adept at pathos. He will likely be Oscar-nominated for a tour de force that tips his derby to silent comic titans Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.
Argentinian actress Bejo (Hazanavicius’ real-life wife) seems a tad sophisticated for her role, at least at the beginning. But she has an infectious smile, a dazzling screen presence and a talent for dancing that becomes increasingly crucial to the film’s plot.
Hazanavicius and his inspired cinematographer, Guillaume Schiffman (working in the classic, nearly square-screen size), have packed their film with loving homages, including some wonderful period-style trick photography used to illustrate George’s drunken hallucinations. Film fans will especially appreciate the film’s elaborate, beautifully executed montages.
The late 1920s/early 1930s mood is underlined by Ludovic Bource’s playful score. It’s a mystery, though, why somebody decided to drop in a huge chunk of Bernard Herrmann’s love theme from “Vertigo’’ — besides being anachronistic, it temporarily took me totally out of the movie.
All that said, I am not as bullish on the Best Picture chances of “The Artist’’ (which was filmed at well-selected locations in Los Angeles) as some one of my fellow Oscar watchers. Like Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo,’’ it’s the sort of film that will likely play to a select but very, very appreciative audience of film lovers.