It may comes as a surprise, but the front
runner for this year’s Oscars is a black and white silent movie from France
with no movie stars. However, it is an homage to the classic Hollywood era,
full of references to masterful films and featuring the glamour of the 1920s. That’s the conceit of The Artist (reviewed here), a film from French director
Michel Hazanavicius. His previous films include two spy comedies called OSS 117, which starred Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo, who here star as two actors who must deal with the coming of
sound as Hollywood transitions. Earlier this year at the New York Film
Festival, the director and stars, along with the producer Thomas Langmon,
discussed the bold project to bring silent film to a mainstream audience.
The origin of the
project
Michel Hazanavicius:
The first impulse was to make a silent movie, and I felt it was not something
so easy to connect with. Just talking about making this movie, people were
saying to me, “Why do you want to make a silent movie?” And the answer was,
“Well I want to” but it was not enough. So I had many options for a
script—well, maybe two options—but one of them was this one. I think it was
maybe easier for to accept to watch a silent movie if the subject is a silent
actor.
Collaborating with the
same actors
MH: They inspired
me—both of them. When I met Thomas [Langmon], he really wanted to make a movie
with me. I said, “Okay; we can make a movie together, but I want to make a
silent movie.” And he said, “Okay.” And then I said, “I want to do it with
Jean, Berenice, Guillaume, who is the cinematographer, and Ludovic, who wrote
the music composer.” And he said, “Okay.” So they really inspired the
characters and I used them in the writing and I really wrote it for them.
Producing a silent
movie
Thomas Langmon:
Well I had a lot of concerns. But I thought, maybe, yes today, with such a
gifted director and my adoration for Michel, I wanted to work with for a long
time, I thought yes. When he spoke about making a silent movie, I thought,
especially for a producer, “Silent…black and white…” well that’s really not
what’s expected…But I thought Michel could succeed in making a silent black and
white movie with this love story and if we had to chance to set it in Hollywood
to work with American actors, people who wanted a very small part, then it would
make it real and with the talent of Michel, it would then make a very good
movie.
Preparation by the
actors and which stars of the silent era they looked at
Berenice Bejo: I
did a lot of preparation...I followed Michel a lot, so I watch a lot of movies—silent
movies, but also Hollywood movies. What was important for me was finding a way
to be an American actress, which I’m not. I’m from Argentina, not even French,
so I have a lot of contradictions. So I watch a lot of Murnau and Borzage and Janet
Gaynor obviously, because she did a lot of silent movies and won the first
Oscar actually. My inspiration came from a lot of movies and especially from
Joan Crawford, the early Joan Crawford when she was 20, 25-years-old. She was
very crazy and had a lot of freedom and she dances very well. I think I watched
videos of her dancing on the Internet like 100 times. And her leg is going
there and there and her arms! She was very cute and adorable, and I thought
Peppy had to have this adorable thing that men and women can relate to her and
love her. I really wanted her to be someone you want to become to be a star. So
I had to find something with a lot of spontaneity and energy. Peppy comes from
Peps, so I had to find the “Peps” of the Peppy.
Then I watched a lot of Marlene
Dietrich, which is not [the character], but Marlene had something very special.
Every time she came into the frame, she had something very animal, very
intense, without doing anything. The way she winks. I watched so many winks. That’s
the only thing I practiced: the winks, and the wiggle…and the tap! That was my
true inspiration.
I also read a book: Gloria
Swanson’s autobiography, which was very important to me, because she talks
about the beginning of the industry. She was an amazing woman: she did the
silent era, and the talking, and then TV, and I just learned about Hollywood,
the way there were so many movies being shot at the same time, and how you
prepared a role in two days. Everything was so prepared: the hair, the makeup,
the clothes. And how the studio just takes someone and makes them a star. It
was great, but at one point Jean was like “Forget Joan, Marlene, and Gloria,
and just focus on you!” So after six months of working, watching, and reading,
I focused on me.
Jean Dujardin: I
saw a lot of movies—Douglas Fairbanks, like Bernice, Murnau, Borzage, James
Cagney films, and Lassie (laughs). It’s very cute—Uggie [the dog
in the film] is my dog!
MH: Uggie watched
Lassie
JD: It’s more
instinctive.
Making something that
could appeal to many audiences
MH: There was an
American movie called Sidewalk Stories
and it was really cool. There’s also the director from Canada, Guy Maddin, who
does a lot of silent movies. The thing for this film I wanted to do here was
something mainstream; I didn’t want to do something experimental. I really have
to credit the producer, because you can do a silent movie but you’re supposed to
work in a certain economy, so you have to experimental. This is not an
experimental movie.
On the process of
shooting the film
MH: I shot the
movie in color, on color strip. But I knew it to be in black and white so I
accepted to green sets, purple dresses, and yellow lights. And that was not so
nice. I hope that we never use it. Some people asked if we recorded the sound.
We didn’t—we knew it was going to be a silent movie so it was thought of it as
a silent black and white movie. We used color stock because it was easier; we
made a lot of tests, and the best was color stock converted to black and white,
because of the sensitivity.
On the impulse to make
a silent film
I think there’s a lot of directors who want to make a silent
movie, because it is the ultimate way to tell a story…it’s all images and this
is the way you tell a story; you don’t have language, lines to do it. I think I
felt confident because I had two successes in France, comedies that were a
success with critics and a success with audiences. I really wanted to share the
experience of a director because the device of a silent movie, specifically a
black and white silent movie, is very special. And the audience participates
and becomes part of the process. It’s a sensual experience.
The challenge of the
dog
MH: I couldn’t
cast a kid, but the dog is a real dog. I wanted a dog and I wanted a Jack
Russell because I thought it was perfectly the flavor of the 20s. It was more
like Tintin. It changed the tone of
the movie, of the main character.
On the film’s lack of
cynicism and the unique gestures and facial expressions of the actors
MH: There’s no
irony in this film; there’s no cynicism; my dreams for this film were very
ironic and very clever. If I tried to do it [cynically], it would be a “spoof”
of silent movie. I decided to do a real silent film in the genre, in the guise
of a 20s movie. So there’s no irony. For them, you don’t have to act. I shot at
22 frames per second, so there’s a very subtle acceleration. So there’s this
feel of the movement of the 20s.
BB: You have a
script and you have characters. As an actor, when you look at a script and the
character is so beautiful, you just have to interpret the character. And then
you have the makeup artist, and the stylist, and the hair, and the costume
designer; everybody was so amazing! I remember the costume designer—every morning
he would put all the extras in the street and check from the top to the bottom.
Everything was so perfect. The makeup artist did a lot of research and the
hairdresser too. So for us, as actors, we just came into the characters thanks
to the work of everybody. As an actress, when you read the script, it was so
good. You don’t have anything to do; it’s all written. You say thank you to the
director, thank you to the scriptwriter. It’s the magic, I guess.
JD: For my
character…it’s my face. Just my face! Smile, smile! It’s like my life. Sometimes
I’m happy; sometimes I’m down.
On the film’s tap
dance sequences
BB: We were not
tap dancers [before], so we worked for six months everyday. I took dancing
classes and tap dancing classes. It was really hard at the beginning and then
began to get boring. Then fun again. I love, as an audience [member], to watch
something [the actors] don’t know. I feel like they give me a gift. You don’t
see the work of an actor when you see the tap dancing. It’s always a lot of fun
for an audience. So Jean and I wanted to give you something special, and Michel
wanted to film it as one shot. He didn’t want cutting to the feet and someone
doing the step. He wanted our faces. The only thing he said was you always have
to smile. Because if you smile, people are going to watch your smile and not
your feet. I felt like an American actress because American actors they dance,
they sing, they act. In France, we don’t learn all those things.
JD: I was
thrilled to dance. I have been dancing all my life.
On the film’s many
cinematic influences, as well as the relationship between Greta Garbo and John
Gilbert, most notably her first sound film, Queen Christina.
MH: Definitely.
Especially that part, when she broke into the talkies, and he stayed in the
silent era. She wanted to help him. The difference was it was not so bad. I
used that part, but there are a lot of references. I didn’t try to do a movie
had a lot of references. Working on the script and watching a lot of movies, I
used some things I saw in other movies. I really wanted to do not just an
homage to the silent era; I wanted to evoke all the classic movies. So that’s
why you have Citizen Kane, Sunset Blvd, a lot of movies from the
20s to 50s. All the lights and the cinematography were to contrast soft lights
with strong backgrounds. During the sound test is the light from the 1950s. But
I wanted to do was tell my own story. If something helped me to tell my story,
I used it.
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