The Artist

[The Wiser Hatter]

Finally saw the Artist last week with my Daugther for her birthday. It is great my daughter and wife thought it was slow. But they where not watching all the action on the screen. The problem is that today people just do not pay attendtion enough to what is going on with the actors face's. We have become so accustomed to dialoge that we do not watch the screen constantly like you need to with a silent film. Where camera angles and shot blocking are improtant to tell the story. Love on all the cap's in the movie tons of them all over the place. An the dog was great, I had a Jack Russell for 15 years till I had to put him down and he was my loyal friend just as this dog was.

 

[mummyjohn]

I can understand if audiences are not as used to searching the actors' faces for emotion, but if you're not looking at the screen what else is there?

 

[Mrs Chaddsley_Corbett]

I'm seeing it, this afternoon,I do so hope that being a silent movie, that the audience don't take it as a Que. to discuss everything that is going on in their lives !

 

[Marc Chevalier]

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Lizziemaine's movie theater is screening "The Artist" today. Please let us know what you think of it, Lizzie.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Great costumes by the by.

A great example of what a talented costumer can do on a smallish budget. Many of the costumes aren't especially authentic-looking, but you'd never guess it -- because the costumer, cameramen and editors, like magicians, knew how to keep you from picking up inaccuracies and inconsistencies. Bottom line: the costuming gives out the impression that it's right overall. Brilliant work, to do that.

 

[Edward]

Finally saw it tonight, and loved it - plot, acting, costumes, score, cars.... the works. On my "to buy" list now....

 

[Mrs Chaddsley_Corbett]

Crossed the Harbour Bridge to watch it at the fabulous Hayden Orpheum in Cremorne, Saturday afternoon 3.00 pm session packed out, mainly ladies of a certain age, the air was thick with 'Arpege' & 'White Linen' when we left there was a huge que for the 5.00 pm session too, i heard one woman complaining that it was slow, but no one walked out

http://www.orpheum.com.au/

 

[Mr Vim]

If that's what the movie theater looked like where I was I'd see any flick there! Shoot I would sit through the Twilight Saga just for that lobby.

 

[LizzieMaine]

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Lizziemaine's movie theater is screening "The Artist" today. Please let us know what you think of it, Lizzie.

We didn't get it this week after all -- a last minute schedule change had us holding over "The Descendants" for another week. But it's now firmly set to start on February 10th, and I'll post a reaction then.

I can say, though, that enthusiasm is running very high for it. I expect it to do very well with our local audience, and it'll probably bring in a lot of out of town folks too.

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

I can understand if audiences are not as used to searching the actors' faces for emotion, but if you're not looking at the screen what else is there?

facebook :eeek:

 

[Dan Rodemsky]

It was not perfect but one of the best films I have seen in a long, long time! I wasn't expecting the humor. Or the Jack Russell. I wish mine were that well behaved. My 21 year old daughter loved it too. What was the last silent movie in theaters? I was thinking Mel Brooks' Silent Movie.

 

[Talbot]

Enjoyed it immensely

 

[Espee]

No explosions, methinks.

Whatever was showing on the adjacent screens of the multiplex where I saw it had more than enough explosions and rumblings, thank you. Is there a movie called "Saving Private Skywalker"?

 

[mummyjohn]

Whatever was showing on the adjacent screens of the multiplex where I saw it had more than enough explosions and rumblings, thank you.

Not a THX theater, eh?

 

[Espee]

The girl reminds me of the 1970s actress Kay Lenz... with sort of a Brooke Adams mouth?
I didn't care for the song she(?) sang on the soundtrack. A standard, but I'm drawing a blank. It didn't seem like a rendition that would bring even movie star of the time, another invitation to sing.

 

[Doctor Strange]

From Wiki:

Only one song (sung, with lyrics) is used in the soundtrack, "Pennies from Heaven", sung by Rose "Chi-Chi" Murphy (uncredited). This song was written in 1936 although the film is set between 1927 and 1932.

 

[Espee]

There was the "Benny Goodman 1937 Sing, Sing, Sing Scare"-- it's in the ads but not in the movie-- but the music in the big dance number finale also sounded more like 1937 than 1932, to me.

 

[Doctor Strange]

It didn't strike me that way on first viewing. Maybe it will next time. I thought they made good use of Duke Ellington's "Jubilee Stomp", though. (And I had to chuckle, because I had used that recording myself in a Super 8 movie I made in 1977!)

I already stated my big music complaint several pages back: I was completely thrown by the use of Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo score at the dramatic climax. It pulled me right out of the story!

And I'm not the only one: also from the Wiki article:

In May 2011, when the film was first shown at the Cannes Festival, Todd McCarthy from The Hollywood Reporter already mentioned the problematic use of Herrmann's music, "Hazanavicius and Bource daringly choose to explicitly employ Bernard Herrmann’s love theme from Vertigo, which is dramatically effective in its own right but is so well known that it yanks you out of one film and places you in the mind-set of another. Surely some sort of reworked equivalent would have been a better idea."

 

[LizzieMaine]

Previewed it today for opening tonight -- and I thought it was absolutely exquisite. It's not a parody or a pastiche or a Modern Take on silent technique -- it's a genuine non-ironic, non-self-conscious silent picture. The overall technique is very similar to that used by Chaplin in "Modern Times", in that sound is used to make a point when needed, not to carry the story, and it shows that such a technique is an entirely viable way to tell a story without needed to be tarted up to suit modern tastes.

If it convinces one person to explore silent pictures further, then it'll have done its job.

The only criticism I have with it is purely technical -- all of the prints in distribution are in the modern 1.85 to 1 ratio, windowboxed down to the traditional Academy ratio of 1.37 to 1. The result of this is an actual image area on the film not much larger than you'd get from 16mm. I realize most theatres today don't have the right lenses or aperture plates to show an Academy ratio film properly, so windowboxing was necessary, but it'd have been nice if they'd made a few real Academy ratio prints for those of us who are able to show them correctly. The photography in the film is so gorgeous that it's a shame to compromise it. The windowboxing is also a real pain for those of us who mask the screen properly -- the changeover cues are very difficult to see when projected against the masking, and when you're running changeovers, there's little margin for error.

Technical complaint aside, if you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for? If you think you're going to have the same experience watching it on a TV screen, you've got another think coming.

 

[Feraud]

It's not a parody or a pastiche or a Modern Take on silent technique -- it's a genuine non-ironic, non-self-conscious silent picture.

This what I enjoyed most about the film.