Elizabeth and I got a babysitter, drove to Scottsdale , and saw The Artist at Harkins Camelview today. The
Artist is one of those movies that’s on every critic’s top 10 list of the
year’s best. Based on the effusive
praise, I sweet-talked Elizabeth
into seeing it instead of the Robert Downey Sherlock
Holmes sequel.
I don’t know if it was a great movie; in other words, I
question how much I was affected by the story the movie told, but one thing is
for certain: it was definitely an
experience, and we were both glad we went.
The thing about The
Artist that you need to know going in is that it is a silent movie. A real
silent movie. I guess I didn’t read the
reviews carefully enough, or maybe the surprise is supposed to be part of the
film’s charm, and so the critics purposely are concealing the fact, but neither
of us knew this at the outset. I did
know that The Artist is a movie about
silent movies; I just sort of assumed it would take the Singin’ in the Rain approach and be a movie about silent movies
without being silent itself. Perhaps the
studio and critics alike were afraid that being straightforward on this count would
only scare audiences away. However, we
both felt that knowing this up front might have saved us a great deal of
needless distraction (and honestly, impatience bordering on irritation) early
in the film while we were sitting there wondering how long things are going to
go along in silent movie mode before they inevitably went back to normal.
Or maybe it wouldn’t have mattered.
Or maybe it wouldn’t have mattered.
Besides, the fact that this truly is a silent movie is
exactly the reason why I want to encourage people to see this film, and to see
it in a theater with an audience, and not to wait for it on DVD.