The film completely adopts traditional Hollywood narrative techniques, using simple pictures, concise subtitles, and vivid music to carefully construct the art of film and pay tribute to the silent film era. Making a silent film in the audio age is like racking your brains to fill in an ancient poem. Whether it's the popular titles of that era, the popular romantic comedy model of the Great Depression, or those classic picture transitions, it can be seen that the director has gone to great lengths to replicate the visual effects of the early films, and even let the speed of the film from per second. 24 grids have been reduced to 16 grids, and all efforts are to strive for a high degree of simulation. The montage of George and his wife having breakfast is a clear imitation of Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane." In fact, even the storyline is a mix of the remakes of "A Star Is Born" and the famous "Sunset Boulevard" in Hollywood film history.
But "The Artist" is not a faithful copy of the silent film, the camera selection did not follow the position of the silent film, and a lot of music was laid on the soundtrack (of course, modern cinemas cannot place a small symphony orchestra live. accompaniment), and experimentally added ambient sounds, action sounds and even lines in individual paragraphs, in order to facilitate the audience to have more resonance. Therefore, it is more like a classic car that has been rebuilt and restored with modern technology, but these seemingly "blemishes" will not affect its becoming the love of nostalgic people.
Because of the silent film, the performance of the actors largely determines the success of the film, so the warm applause of the film is also inseparable from the performance part. Although the silent film star George Valentine in the story is not a complex character, he is a character with a huge psychological gap. Without the support of dialogue, Jean Dujardin not only made George his career. The complacent and even conceited performance at the peak was vivid and vivid, and it was even more vivid on the screen after he plummeted. Let Dujardin's slightly funny smile also be charming, and let people see its cute side through it.
Although the director expressed his respect for silent films most of the time, he did not shy away from the cruel reality that it was eventually replaced. In the section where they met on the stairs, the two people walking opposite each other alludes to the loneliness of silent films and that of sound films. of brilliance. Words are power. The parting of sound films and silent films is not just about whether the characters in the play have a "speaking" expression, rather than the continuous complement of subtitles, but also because the party who masters the words has the right to speak, and words are no longer a concept in language. , but a component of power. In the silent film world, the physical performance of the male protagonist George occupies most of the viewing space. The body is a symbol of power and dominates the audience's gaze. However, the most direct way of expressing human communication loses control. Regarding speaking or not speaking, George lost almost everything in the process of fighting against the world, only the puppy who was agile but unable to speak was always by his side, because of his almost morbid fear and disdain for speaking. When George was about to commit suicide, with a bang, the audience thought it was the sound of shooting suicide, but it was the sound of Penny's car hitting a tree. Although George didn't believe in the charm of sound movies until his death, it was this With a bang, it saved George's life. After all, the movie is beautiful and simple, and it gave George another springboard to take off in his life, but in reality, how many superstars who persist in the silent form have fallen because of their difficulty in speaking. The director kept George's voice outside the cut, and also kept the "fig leaf" of the last silent film.
If the film was born in the corresponding era, it should also become a classic, not to mention that it was born in such an impetuous present, which can be said to be soul-stirring. It is the most exquisite imitation, and it is also the transcendence of the heart. No film can be perfect, and it is difficult to please everyone. It is more like a memory that falls on film. It is enough for people to see the twists and turns of the film along the way between light and shadow.
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