The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius, 2011)

Much as I desired some kind of return for silent filmmaking in the 21st century, Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist does not resemble a silent picture so much as a talkie with the audio track removed. Lacking all the propulsion of silent cinema, the capacity for rich visual storytelling that seemed fast ay any speed, The Artist lethargically moves through its pastiche. As a billet-doux, the film is sufficiently earnest to be charming, but it never displays any particular insight into the silent era, making even its homage thin.

But then, Hazanavicius' jumping-off point appears not to be the silents themselves so much as Singin' in the Rain, the 1952 masterpiece that also dealt with the change from silents to talkies. The Artist is the flip-side of that, not about the song-and-dance people who made up for the camera's loss of lyricism but those on the other side of the spectrum, unable to adapt to the new format. In a sense, the hero of The Artist is Lina Lamont, albeit more likable and earnest. But if Kelly and Donen's work was a sincere, if teasing, testament to the event that gave their own careers a boost, The Artist too often feels suffocatingly nostalgic in a lecturing way, even as it does not capture the tone the silents.