The Artist

It's wonderful to begin the year with a movie as wonderful as this one.

I thoroughly enjoyed all 100 minutes of this silent film. Michel Hazanavicius' masterpiece will hopefully inspire even more directors to create what I believe to be a lost medium - silent film. (Please note that the theatre isn't silent completely, as music plays to set the mood for the movie at times.) The acting fit perfectly to the style of the movie by including large displays of emotion that would seem ridiculous to a current audience in a modern film. Whether these displays were Jean Dujardin's massive smiles and head twitches or Berenice Bejo's silly but adorable dance movies, they seemed effective in making the movie lighthearted where needed, and dramatic elsewhere.

My generation truly missed out on silent films, and that really saddens me. Us kids of the 90's were right at the edge of cassette tapes and kid's cartoons, and technology of media exploded from there. I'm so sad I never got to sit around with friends listening to vinyls like my parents did (though I admit I have listened to Dad's records quite a few times over, mostly in secrecy). I remember VHS tapes, and how awesome they were, but they were quickly replaced with DVD's. I grabbed a VCR from home and several VHS tapes and I've brought them to Davidson, not to be ironic and nostalgic, but to fully enjoy every single movie so much more. The only VHS tapes I can find are classics and they might be damaged such that the entire movie has a slight pink tint, but they are so much more appreciated than the fifty DVD's I buy every year. Rewinding a movie might be a pain, but it reminds me to slow down every now and then between scenes in my life.

I know I've strayed from the topic of The Artist, but the fact that Hazanavicius made a silent film - one popular in the mainstream - after decades of none at all amazes me. I enjoyed myself so much watching the film, and I sincerely hope that more of the style are produced soon since the film has done so well.