The Artist Print

Al Zimmer: Perfect! Beautiful! Could you give me just one more? George Valentin: With pleasure. George Valentin: If only he could talk. Peppy Miller: [trying to pressure the studio into letting her do a film with George] I won't work anymore. It's either him or me. [Zimmer appears bemused] Peppy Miller: What I mean is, it's him AND me! Or it's neither of us! [everybody is still looking at her blankly] Peppy Miller: Hey, I'm blackmailing you! Get it? George Valentin: [first lines, heard in one of his films] I won't talk! I won't say a word! Doris: Why won't you talk? Al Zimmer: You and I belong to another era, George. The world is talking now. People want new faces, talking faces. I wish it wasn't like this, but the public wants fresh meat, and the public is never wrong. George Valentin: I'm the one people come to see. They never needed to hear me. from ‘The Artist’ (2011) Starring Penelope Ann Miller ('Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have named you'), Joel Murray (Scrooged), Malcolm McDowell (Star Trek: Generations - Whoa, wait a minute. Was anyone else aware that he recieved death threats for that film? Yep, because he played a fictional character that killed another fictional character.. in a movie, some people decided to threaten his actual life. Fuckin' eh man. Although, I can’t really picture a Trekkie going through with that. An all bark, no bite kinda thing I guess. Moreover, it kinda (just a wee bit) goes against Roddenberry's philosophy for the franchise. "Set phasers to stun". Not kill. But seriously, that’s fucked up.. #GetALife #PicardIsSuperior #ComplainingIsFutile), Beth Grant (Jericho), Ed Lauter (Val’s Real Genius), John Goodman (The Survivors), Jean Dujardin (The Monuments Men), Zefram Cochrane (Say it with me now… "That’ll do, pig."), Bill Fagerbakke (M-O-O-N.. That spells COACH), Bérénice Bejo (A Knight's Tale), and Missi Pyle ("Hi! What's up with her, doesn't she talk? -- "Yalalalala!" -- "Okey dokey."). Written and Directed by Michel Hazanavicius (The Search). The Artist is a 2011 French comedy-drama film in the style of a black-and-white silent film or part-talkie. The film was written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius, produced by Thomas Langmann and stars Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo. The story takes place in Hollywood, between 1927 and 1932, and focuses on the relationship between a rising young actress and an older silent film star as silent cinema falls out of fashion and is replaced by the "talkies". The Artist received widespread critical acclaim and won many accolades. Dujardin won Best Actor at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where the film premiered. The film was nominated for six Golden Globes, the most of any 2011 film, and won three: Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Best Original Score, and Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for Dujardin. In January 2012, the film was nominated for twelve BAFTAs, the most of any film from 2011, and won seven, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor for Dujardin, and Best Original Screenplay for Hazanavicius. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won five, including Best Picture, Best Director for Hazanavicius, and Best Actor for Dujardin, making him the first French actor ever to win in this category. It was also the first French-produced film to win Best Picture, and the first mainly silent film to win since 1927's Wings won at the 1st Academy Awards in 1929. It was also the first film presented in the 4:3 aspect ratio to win since 1953's From Here to Eternity. Additionally, it was the first black-and-white film to win since 1993's Schindler's List, though the latter contained limited colour sequences; it was the first 100% black-and-white film to win since 1960's The Apartment. In France it was nominated for ten César Awards, winning six, including Best Film, Best Director for Hazanavicius and Best Actress for Bejo. The Artist has received more awards than any other French film. A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (and in particular, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when necessary, be conveyed by the use of title cards. The term "silent film" is something of a misnomer, as these films were almost always accompanied by live sounds. During the silent era that existed from the mid-1890s to the late 1920s, a pianist, theater organist—or even, in large cities, a small orchestra—would often play music to accompany the films. Pianists and organists would play either from sheet music, or improvisation. Sometimes a person would even narrate the intertitle cards for the audience. Though at the time the technology to synchronize sound with the film did not exist, music was seen as an essential part of the viewing experience. "Silent film" is typically used as a historical term to describe an era of cinema prior to the invention of synchronized sound, however it also naturally applies to sound-era films such as City Lights and The Artist which are accompanied by a music-only soundtrack in place of dialogue. The term silent film is a retronym—a term created to retroactively distinguish something from later developments. Early sound films, starting with The Jazz Singer in 1927, were variously referred to as the "talkies", "sound films", or "talking pictures". The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as film itself, but because of the technical challenges involved, the introduction of synchronized dialogue became practical only in the late 1920s with the perfection of the Audion amplifier tube and the advent of the Vitaphone system. Within a decade, the widespread production of silent films for popular entertainment had ceased, and the industry had moved fully into the sound era, in which movies were accompanied by synchronized sound recordings of spoken dialogue, music and sound effects. Most early motion pictures are considered lost because the nitrate film used in that era was extremely unstable and flammable. Additionally, many films were deliberately destroyed because they had negligible continuing financial value in this era. It has often been claimed that around 75 percent of silent films produced in the US have been lost, though these estimates may be inaccurate due to a lack of numerical data. A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before sound motion pictures were made commercially practical. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, and amplification and recording quality were also inadequate. Innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923. The primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid-to-late 1920s. At first, the sound films which included synchronized dialogue, known as "talking pictures", or "talkies", were exclusively shorts. The earliest feature-length movies with recorded sound included only music and effects. The first feature film originally presented as a talkie (even though it only had some sound sequences) was The Jazz Singer, which premiered on October 6, 1927. A major hit, it was made with Vitaphone, which was at the time the leading brand of sound-on-disc technology. Sound-on-film, however, would soon become the standard for talking pictures. By the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon. In the United States, they helped secure Hollywood's position as one of the world's most powerful cultural/commercial centers of influence (see Cinema of the United States). In Europe (and, to a lesser degree, elsewhere), the new development was treated with suspicion by many filmmakers and critics, who worried that a focus on dialogue would subvert the unique aesthetic virtues of soundless cinema. In Japan, where the popular film tradition integrated silent movie and live vocal performance, talking pictures were slow to take root. Conversely, in India, sound was the transformative element that led to the rapid expansion of the nation's film industry. Source: Wikipedia