Fury, But No Sound: “The Artist”

My favorite movie about the impact on Hollywood of the coming of talking pictures will always be Singin’ in the Rain. The 1952 musical directed by Stanley Donen is giddy good fun. Who can improve upon Donald O’Connor’s pratfalls, a lovestruck Gene Kelly swinging from a lamp-post, and Debbie Reynolds smiling through tears? And then there’s the film’s secret weapon: the hilarious Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont, a diva so dumb that she doesn’t realize her screechy speaking voice will be replaced by someone off-camera. Her performance as a self-proclaimed “shimmering, glowing star in the cinema firmament” can never be topped.

 The central joke of Singin’ in the Rain is that the elegant creatures who populate the silent screen didn’t necessarily have the vocal chops needed to insure their transition into talkies. The dilemma of the silent star whose career evaporates after the success of 1927’s The Jazz Singer is treated strictly for laughs, at the expense of the Hollywood egotists who won’t, or can’t, adapt to change. But the whole subject is addressed with considerably more gravity in a highly unusual French film from 2011, The Artist. Surveying the same era as Singin’ in the Rain, in which careers are saved by transforming The Dueling Cavalier into The Dancing Cavalier, The Artist also has its gags and its upbeat ending. Still, the plight of a star put out to pasture when talkies replace silents is treated in The Artist with considerably more gravity.

 France’s Jean Dujardin won an Oscar for playing George Valentin, an icon of the silent screen who’s cornered the market on swashbuckling roles. I don’t think it’s an accident that Dujardin looks a lot like Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain. He has Kelly’s physical dexterity as well as his patent-leather hair and toothy grin. He also has something of  Kelly’s trademark cockiness: early in the film, after the premiere screening of his latest derring-do epic, he appears on stage to take several bows, then delights the well-dressed audience by clowning and  showing off some slick dance moves.

 What makes The Artist so stylistically unusual is that it is filmed throughout as a silent feature, complete with title cards inserted to give us snatches of dialogue. Even after the public discovers the talking picture, George and those around him convey their thoughts strictly through gesture and facial expression.  Within the world of the story, even as George languishes in squalor, the young and vibrant Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) rises to the top of moviedom because of her musical talents. But we never hear her sing or even speak; like George she’s trapped in the silent movie we’re watching. What’s unique about George, though, is that he seems to resist sound with all of his being. There’s a nightmarish moment (it turns out to be a dream sequence) where he’s suddenly bombarded by sound: the clunk of a water glass against a table, the bark of his little dog, the trilling of a telephone, the laugh of passersby. All that noise gives him physical pain. But even in his waking hours, he seems to resist speech. That’s part of the reason for his crumbling marriage: even when he’s deeply hurt, he doesn’t want to talk about it.

 It's certainly rare for a foreign film featuring foreign stars to nab the Oscar for Best Pictures. But The Artist of course doesn’t need to be relegated to the Best Foreign Language Film category. Its lack of audible speech makes it universal, and its visible love for old Hollywood makes it endearing..

 

 

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Singin’ (and Filmmakin’) in the Rain

It’s been a busy week in Movieland. Stephen Colbert, His Royal Truthiness, has just ended his long run on Comedy Central. Sony Pictures’ controversial new comedy, The Interview, is being held hostage by North Korea. But me – I’m thinking about rain.

We had rain last week, and the week before. It’s raining as I write this. For people in most parts of the country, dampness in December wouldn’t be such a big deal. But this is Southern California, where we’ve lived through three years of drought. While people in colder climes are now California-dreamin’ about our mild temperatures and cloudless days, we L.A. folk find wet weather something to cheer about.

All of which has made me ponder the symbolic use of rain in movies. Many a romantic comedy ends with reconciled lovers kissing in the rain, oblivious to the downpour because their passion for one another is keeping them warm and dry. Take Andie MacDowell’s character in Four Weddings and a Funeral. Looking like a drowned rat while listening to Hugh Grant’s sudden declaration of love, she asks, “Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed.” Then of course there’s Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) at the conclusion of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. On a stormy day, jumping out of  a taxi in search of her missing cat, she ends up in the arms of Paul (George Peppard), the good man who’s been waiting for her all along. As “Moon River” soars on the soundtrack, we see them locked in an ecstatic though soggy embrace, firmly committed to happily ever after.

And let’s not forget Singin’ in the Rain, perhaps my favorite movie about the making of movies. Many of the scenes of that great film highlight the manipulation of reality on a movie soundstage. Like, for instance, Gene Kelly’s character turning on klieg lights so he can serenade Debbie Reynolds in an artificial moonlight. But the famous moment in which he dances down a sodden city street with umbrella in hand is meant – in the world of the film – to be taken as real, not movie magic. It’s not real, of course, but rather the product of studio sfx artists, adept at producing cloudbursts on cue.

In movies, rain doesn’t always signal happy endings. Its disruption of normal life makes it an effectively visual way to pump up a dramatic situation. In Network, we all remember how Howard Beale, “the mad prophet of the airwaves,” urges his fans to open their windows and yell, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore.” What I’d forgotten until recently is that Beale (Peter Finch), whose newscaster job is on the line, wakes up on a stormy night, throws a raincoat over his pajamas, and heads for the studio. By the time he’s on air, he’s soaking wet, and his thundering sturm-und-drang oration matches the portentous weather outside.

Most of The Graduate focuses on Southern California as a land of swimming pools and endless sunshine. But the crucial scene in which Elaine Robinson discovers what’s been going on between Benjamin and her mother is played against a rare SoCal summer rainstorm. So when Elaine stares at Mrs. Robinson and guesses the truth, she’s seeing a woman (normally elegantly dressed and coiffed) who’s now bedraggled and soaked to the skin. Symbolically, at least, lightning strikes. 

     

Which leads me to Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia. It’s hard to summarize all the complex goings-on in this fascinating 1999 film about odd-ball coincidences, set in L.A.’s workaday San Fernando Valley. But its conclusion is apocalyptic. Would you believe it’s raining frogs?