Overall, I was not impressed with The Artist.
Unless you live under a rock (and, hey, I'm not knocking the coziness and safety of a nice, solid rock), you know that The Artist won this year's Best Picture Oscar. I finally got around to watching it on DVD, mostly, I confess, because my husband wanted to. I'm not really into silent films, but I've seen some, as well as other good early film classics, so I knew what to expect.
It is a decent tribute to the end of the silent film-making era, but not great. The acting is spot-on, a little like theater acting with exaggerated facial expressions and large body movements. Once I got into that, I enjoyed it and found it quite humorous, as it was meant to be.
I generally like new faces in movies, but in this case, I wish the movie had more known actors in it because it's entertaining to watch an actor you've seen in modern movies, such as John Goodman, attempt a more theatrical old-school acting style like this. But Goodman was the only familiar face for me.
(SPOILERS AHEAD) The movie's depiction of the transition from silent films to "talkies" is clever, but it isn't as well-done as I thought it could have been. Most of the movie is silent, but as the transition takes place, we get to hear a few sounds and, at the end, even words. I think the movie-makers should have run more with that. It was such a little touch it felt more like the movie stepped away from what it was trying to be rather than that it depicted a transition from silence to speech in films. I would have preferred to have all the sounds and speech at the end of the movie following the transition, but instead, the movie goes back to a silent film for part of that. It needed to be "all in" or leave out the sounds altogether, I think, but maybe that's just my preference for modern-day films surfacing.
More than that, however, what I didn't like about the movie was the story, unfortunately. It's about a romantic affair and an arrogant actor who doesn't learn a thing by the end, even after losing nearly everything. Maybe affairs were a big part of the times, I don't know, but for me, morality sometimes makes or breaks a story. With no clear indication that the affair was a reflection of culture at that time, this movie's morality broke it for me. Nothing bad is shown, of course. It's an emotional affair rather than a sexual one. (SPOILERS END)
The MPAA rates the movie PG-13 for, and I quote, "a disturbing image and a crude gesture," which just makes me laugh. There's nothing your little ones can't see. It's more that anyone under 13 (or maybe 20), with the rare exception, just isn't going to "get it."
If you are not familiar with silent films, this could be a good introduction, simply because it's made today and not a century ago and the film-makers are aware of their modern viewers. But if you have no intention of ever watching a classic silent film, there's no reason to watch this modern one either.
Showing posts with label early movie-making history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label early movie-making history. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Hugo on DVD
I didn't know what to expect when I rented Hugo. I'd heard good things. I knew it was first a book told primarily in pictures. But I didn't know the story. Having not read the book, I can't compare the two, so this review is based solely on the movie.
Hugo is about a boy who keeps the clocks running in a train station in Paris in the early to mid 1900's. All he has left from the life before his father died is an automaton his clockmaker father and he were trying to fix. The automaton is a little robotic man that is supposed to write something when it works. Hugo's thievery leads to an encounter with a toy shop owner and his young ward: a girl who loves books, wants to go on an adventure, and has never seen a movie. Together, Hugo and this girl fix the automaton and discover a secret with the power to heal a broken, old man and give a lost boy a purpose and a home.
It's a beautiful little story, slowly and artistically woven together to recreate the old magic people felt when watching movies for the very first time. In fact, director Martin Scorsese leans heavily on early movie-making history to leave the viewer with something akin to nostalgia for a time most of us aren't old enough to have memories of, something the book could not have done in the same way.
I did not see Hugo in 3D (as it was in theaters), but this is one case (and there are very few) where 3D might have added to the wonder of the film. There is a scene where a train rushes at you from the screen, and just as the first people to watch a movie jumped in fear that they were about to be run over (never having seen a movie before, what would you think?), a modern audience might jump a little with the 3D effects. The movie is full of these subtle nods to early movie-making history.
A lovely cast of characters (Christopher Lee, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Jude Law among others, including two brilliant child actors) playing charming roles are the icing on the cake, helping to make Hugo a little masterpiece. No wonder it was up for Oscar nominations. It's a heartstring-pulling, sometimes sad yet ultimately happy tale of love, life, and purpose. Of course it appeals to us on a fundamental level.
It is a little slow, but that's part of the magic of this carefully crafted work of art where slices of life in an old Paris train station make you laugh or want to cry, ache with pain and then with joy. If you find the plot to be a little lacking, the emotional depth should make up for it. Four stars.
Hugo is about a boy who keeps the clocks running in a train station in Paris in the early to mid 1900's. All he has left from the life before his father died is an automaton his clockmaker father and he were trying to fix. The automaton is a little robotic man that is supposed to write something when it works. Hugo's thievery leads to an encounter with a toy shop owner and his young ward: a girl who loves books, wants to go on an adventure, and has never seen a movie. Together, Hugo and this girl fix the automaton and discover a secret with the power to heal a broken, old man and give a lost boy a purpose and a home.
It's a beautiful little story, slowly and artistically woven together to recreate the old magic people felt when watching movies for the very first time. In fact, director Martin Scorsese leans heavily on early movie-making history to leave the viewer with something akin to nostalgia for a time most of us aren't old enough to have memories of, something the book could not have done in the same way.
I did not see Hugo in 3D (as it was in theaters), but this is one case (and there are very few) where 3D might have added to the wonder of the film. There is a scene where a train rushes at you from the screen, and just as the first people to watch a movie jumped in fear that they were about to be run over (never having seen a movie before, what would you think?), a modern audience might jump a little with the 3D effects. The movie is full of these subtle nods to early movie-making history.
A lovely cast of characters (Christopher Lee, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Jude Law among others, including two brilliant child actors) playing charming roles are the icing on the cake, helping to make Hugo a little masterpiece. No wonder it was up for Oscar nominations. It's a heartstring-pulling, sometimes sad yet ultimately happy tale of love, life, and purpose. Of course it appeals to us on a fundamental level.
It is a little slow, but that's part of the magic of this carefully crafted work of art where slices of life in an old Paris train station make you laugh or want to cry, ache with pain and then with joy. If you find the plot to be a little lacking, the emotional depth should make up for it. Four stars.
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