Director Michel Hazanavicius had been fantasizing about making a silent film for many years, both because many filmmakers he admires emerged in the silent era, and because of the image-driven nature of the form. According to Hazanavicius, his wish to make a silent film was at first not taken seriously, but after the financial success of his spy-film pastiches OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and OSS 117: Lost in Rio, producers started to express interest. The forming of the film's narrative started with Hazanavicius' desire to work again with actors Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo, who had both starred in OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies. Hazanavicius chose the form of a melodrama, mostly because he thought many of the films from the silent era that have aged best are of that genre. He did extensive research about 1920s Hollywood, and studied silent films to find the right techniques to make the story comprehensible without having to use too many intertitles. The screenplay took four months to write and was principally inspired by the 1928 silent comedy, Show People.
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The Artist
(2011)5
Country | |
Runtime | 1 hr 36 min |
Budget | $15 000 000 |
Premiere: World | $133 471 171 October 12, 2011 |
USA | $44 671 682 |
Other countries | $88 799 489 |
Box Office – Budget | $118 471 171 |
Premiere: USA | $44 671 682 November 25, 2011 |
first day | $75 456 |
theaters | 1756 |
rollout | 403 days |
Digital: World | June 12, 2012 |
Parental Advisory | Frightening & Intense Scenes, Alcohol, Drugs & Smoking, Violence & Gore |
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Production Companies | |
Also Known As | Beauty Spot (United States) |
Description
When George, a silent movie superstar, meets Peppy Miller, a dancer, sparks fly between the two. However, after the introduction of talking pictures, their fortunes change, affecting their dynamic.Сast and Crew
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Michel Hazanavicius — Top Rated Movies
Critique: 57
[A] sweet, sincere, massively overrated valentine to silent movies.
Silent black-and-white movies are not coming back, but this one is such a rewarding labor of love by all of the artists involved that it just...
A cheeky trifle whose present-day novelty of being, well, silent and black-and-white carries it a long way.
Through it all, Dujardin has great dignity, is hugely likeable, and pulls off touches of comic poignancy not far from Chaplin’s.
Strangely, wonderfully, The Artist feels as bold and innovative a moviegoing experience as James Cameron’s bells-and-whistles Avatar did ...
"The Artist'' is a small, exquisitely-cut jewel in a style everyone assumes is 80 years out of date.
"The Artist" should appeal to anyone willing to take a chance.
Retro but totally modern, frivolous yet fundamentally serious, The Artist is a thing of grace and joy and a great American film – of the...
"The Artist" is the wonder of the age, as much a miracle as "Avatar," though it comes at things from the totally opposite direction.
It isn’t arty or intellectual, though it is artful and ingenious, and it’s the rare crowd-pleaser that never feels obvious or pandering.
The Artist plays around with the distinction between silent and sound cinema, resulting in the superficial entertainment value of a high concept fi...
The Artist is simply a pleasure to watch, if only for just two hours in time.
It’s a big, beribboned heart-tugger of a movie and Dujardin, who won the best actor award this year at Cannes, is a charming m...
A bona fide classic. You won’t get the smile off your face all the way home.
A glorious spectacle that captivates the senses and energizes the mind, The Artist is a full-bodied sensation that had me doing interior cartwheels...
Says something about stubbornness and ego (look at the pretension in that title again) and about the dangers everyone faces when they refuse to see...
A beguiling tale about Hollywood’s silent movie days that is itself silent, this made-in-L.A. French feature will charm cinephiles with its a...
The Artist is a whole lot better than Michel Hazanavicius’s two OSS 117 movies: better gags, better performances, viable emotional...
A joyous celebration of cinema worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as Singin' in the Rain.
Uplifting, heart-warming, hilarious… not necessarily words you’d expect to apply to a black and white silent French film. But The Artist...
The Artist is so wonderful that the audience applauds everything, including the dog.
As it opens, we’re watching an audience watch a silent adventure film, and in a funny way we spend the rest of the movie watching o...
Glorious, delicious and an unalloyed joy… I loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it.
Throughout, Hazanavicius finds clever, poetic ways to illustrate the allure of Golden Age Hollywood stardom…
"The Artist" is propelled by its performances, particularly Dujardin’s. He has an exquisite elegance, and builds a whole movie with...
The Artist is a slight confection, really, but it’s so delicious and knowing that it may well end up on any number of cineastes' desert...
Exuberantly entertaining and an emotional grower on reflection, Michel Hazanavicius’s backstage drama takes the old A Star Is Born plot...
"The Artist" is such an engaging, delightful film that, if you like movies, you will walk out of the theater with a smile. You just will...
There is literally nothing wrong with it. I don’t have a single nit to pick, minor flaw to point out or little bit that annoyed me. It i...
A valentine to the glories of silent cinema, a triumph of artistic teleportation, pure effervescence that gives crowdpleasing a good name.
Sometimes cinema should just be pure, unadulterated joy, and The Artist is precisely that, in every wordless frame.
The Artist may have started as a daring stunt, but it elevates itself to an endearing – and probably enduring – delight.
For a movie that is so much about technique, it’s surprising how affecting the story is.
The whole thing is so damn clever and charming, it might just sneak off with Best Picture.
The movie ever fully shakes off its air of skillfully executed experiment, but it’s spirited and charming nonetheless.
This effort often manages to duplicate the magical pantomime of the era; a lovely scene in which Bejo drapes herself in the arms of a hung jacket a...
Ignores everything that’s fascinating and memorable about the silent-film era, focusing instead on a patchwork of general knowledge, so...
With supreme confidence and an informed, infectious fondness for his subject, writer-director Michel Hazanavicius manages to embrace contradictions...
Unfettered by irony, inspiring the kind of spontaneous emotional response we yearn for at the multiplex, [it] immerses us in joyful illusion, a wor...
The Artist is drunk on the history of cinema and art, and culture buffs will get giddy on it.
Not just a re-creation of an archaic technique – the characters are real, vivid, and affecting. The movie transcends its story to be more...
This slight but enormously likable picture seems destined to be an awards magnet: A holiday release with enough formal sophistication to appeal to...
A project so idiosyncratic, so unlikely, so simultaneously innocent and sophisticated that it could only have been devised by the French.
The Artist encapsulates everything we go to movies for: action, laughs, tears and a chance to get lost in another world. How can Oscar resist?
A crowd-pleaser even if you aren’t steeped in film lore. As the old posters used to promise, it’s got Comedy! Romance! Thrills! (As wel...
Consistently inventive, heartfelt, and mesmerizing, The Artist reminds one of the visual power of the medium. It’s always been about the movi...
The fiction, ultimately, is the thing. The Artist, in the best possible sense, is more of a movie than a film. It’s played for laughs and tea...
The happy ending had me on my feet cheering throughout the final credits. I can’t wait to see it again.
Michel Hazanavicius' black-and-white, mostly silent comedy The Artist is a gorgeously made curiosity – a film that functions as a testame...
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Watched
Somehow I didn’t really like the plot and the whole idea of the "mute character" and his madness, but it was implemented coolly and there were a lot of references. Well, overall a good movie about a dog Translated to English
Watched
A story about a silent film star who did not fit into the new realities and found herself on the sidelines of life. Although the plot is quite dramatic, the film is not depressing. Firstly, this is a melodrama with a happy ending, and secondly, the stylization of an old silent movie reduces the degree of tragedy. Translated to English
The styling was a success! Jean Dujardin is the spitting image of a silent film actor) At the same time, there are no excessive grimaces that are expected in silent films. Translated to English
An example of a black and white brilliant work about how new technologies change and ruin people’s lives. A well-deserved Oscar. It’s a pity that few films like this are watched, and as a result, few are made. I give a standing ovation. Translated to English
Watched
An hour out of 140 minutes is occupied by the sad descent of the GG to the bottom. I’m sure the film ended at the shot – no happy ending. But something didn’t go according to plan, and we got a bright film. Dujardin, the dog and the sound design are dragging. The dream scene and ending are brilliant. A tender ode to silent cinema. Translated to English