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| Jean Dujardin & Berenice Bejoin in THE ARTIST |
The Artist (2011) and Hugo (2011) are
fictional depictions of important moments in film history. In the case of Hugo, the characters are based on real
people, but the story telling is on such a grand scale that the truth is buried
deep beneath the surface. The Artist
is a good imitation of a silent film even when the characters are verge of
breaking the sound barrier. Both films
serve as gateway drugs designed to entertain audiences and to introduce a new
generation of moviegoers to the pioneer days of motion pictures. Martin Scorsese’s efforts to preserve our
film heritage are at the root of Hugo,
but this doesn’t detract from a story well told by a gifted story teller.
There were some
nice attempts back in the 1970s to romanticize and revitalize the public’s
interest in silent films including Howard Zieff’s Hearts of the West (1975), Peter Bogdanovich’s Nickelodeon (1976), and Mel Brooks’ anachronistic Silent Movie (1976). In the 1980s, Francis Ford Coppola brought Abel
Gance’s Napoleon out of moth balls
and took it on the road with a full orchestra. It was back again this year
under the auspices of its archival evangelist, Kevin Brownlow, with additional
footage and a full orchestra conducted by Carl Davis.
Fritz Lang’s Metropolis also made some noise back in
the 1980s with a rock and roll score produced by Georgio Moroder. It was
recently resurrected with additional footage found in Argentina and given the
full orchestra treatment before making its way back to DVD and Blu-Ray.
In the
1990s, Richard Attenborough brought Charlie Chaplin back to life with the help of Robert
Downey Jr. Chaplin (1992) probably did more for Robert Downey Jr.than it did for Chaplin. Chaplin was slow to embrace sound beyond
providing syncronized musical scores and sound effects to his films. He created great silent movies well into
the sound era, notably City Lights (1931)
and Modern Times (1936).
In Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950), Joe Gillis (William Holden), a
screenwriter who becomes the gigolo of silent film star Norma Desmond
(Gloria Swanson) refers to a group of card playing silent stars as “the
waxworks”. Sixty-two years later, silent film stars might as well be mummies to a
teenager buying a ticket for Men In Black 3.
After all, the first Men In Black
movie was made somewhere between their birth and Kindergarten making it “an old
movie”. Silent films are now ancient history.
If you’re just
discovering the magic of Méliés and the devastating thud heard by silent stars who
couldn’t, or wouldn’t, talk when the sound era arrived, previously illustrated in
Singin’ In the Rain (1952), you can
take a side trip to most of the films that I’ve listed above on DVD, Blu-Ray,
digital download or by using a film streaming service like Netflix or Hulu.
When you have completed your initial research, take some time to see some of
the hundreds of real silent films that have survived. You might be pleasantly
surprised. Many silent films are as entertaining as The Artist, which was released on DVD this week.
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| Asa Butterfield & Chloë Grace Moretz in HUGO |
