The Artist

[Univaded_Fox]

As I write these words, I am still smiling from last night's screening of The Artist.  But I am also sneering at those reports of persons who walked out of this film.  They demanded their money back because the movie was silent, in black and white, and filmed at the old 4:3 academy crop.  I suspect those people were from our generation: vapid mundanes who think that Twilight is the greatest franchise in cinematic history; who have never seen a silent movie before and don't care.  I want to slap those people across the face and scream at them.  The point of filmmaking is to make art, and to you art can be Picasso or Van Gough or DaVinci or Emily Carr.  In short, the point of art is not to do the same, because sameness is blandness, and blandness never stands out or lasts eternal.  You get remembered, you stand out from the crowd, because you are different.

And The Artist is gloriously different.  This film could not be made with sound, or in color, or on widescreen.  It exists in that beautiful world that we only know of from silent cinema.  The soft edges and blurred details; the flapper clothing and pencil moustaches.  The countless Bijous with their glowing marquees and flickering projectors.  The cavernous palatial movie houses with their balconies and box seats.  The photoplays, when movies did not need to talk.  They had faces and emotions, and you don't need dialogue to tell a joke that makes you laugh, or have an audiences grip their seats in terror or clutch their handkerchiefs in tears.  All you need is something to care about.  That's all any of us really need to survive.  

So, if you are flash-ADD, love your CGI, and certain directors who favor hypertensive editing, don't go see this film.  If you want something to fill free time while you text away in the dark, don't go see this film.  If you feel like you have to go see this film because it will win the Best Picture Academy Award, don't go see this film!  Go to see it only if you want to!  And only if you want to have that small untouchable part of you—the blip that only cinema can touch—be touched.

Oh yes, and Uggie the dog is damn cute!

[Tef]

They demanded their money back because the movie was silent, in black and white, and filmed at the old 4:3 academy crop.  I suspect those people were from our generation: vapid mundanes who think that Twilight is the greatest franchise in cinematic history; who have never seen a silent movie before and don't care.  I want to slap those people across the face and scream at them.

If you feel like you have to go see this film because it will win the Best Picture Academy Award, don't go see this film!  Go to see it only if you want to!  And only if you want to have that small untouchable part of you—the blip that only cinema can touch—be touched.

Arrrghh...yeah, those people have no respect for history. I'm a touristy fur in terms of checking out film festivals - it might be of worth for me to give this a shot.