The first and only silent film to win Best Picture at the Oscars was Wings in 1929, the year of the Academy Award’s first broadcast. It appears that history is about to repeat itself as The Artist, Michel Hazanavicius’ critically renowned silent film, is a favorite to win the 2012 Best Picture, just eighty-three years later. To date, The Artist has won three Golden Globes, seven BAFTA’s (including Best Film), ten Cesar Awards (France’s answer to the Oscars), and is nominated for ten Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor (Jean Dujardin), and Best Supporting Actress (Berenice Bejo).
But despite The Artist’s acclaim, not much is really known about the French import or its key players (Hazanavicius, Dujardin and Bejo) and their involvement in what appears to be a uniquely American story. The film, which is not only silent but shot in black and white, follows the career of silent film star George Valentin (Dujardin) in 1929 and his fall from grace with the sudden popularity of “talkies.” Bejo plays Peppy Miller, George’s love interest and a chorus girl who shoots to fame just as he is stumbling. The surprisingly dark story of George’s grief becomes uplifting and endearing when Peppy gets him back on his feet and stars with him in a new movie—as a dancing team.
The film is a love letter to Old Hollywood and is filled with references for the keen viewer, but what would a French film crew know about it? It appears Michel Hazanavicius knows quite a bit. His first feature-length film was “La Classe americaine,” which consisted exclusively of dubbed footage from Warner Bros movies. He was a major fan of silent films before making The Artist and studied the 1920s intensely during production.
“I don’t think Hollywood is so American,” Hazanavicius has said, “Hollywood belongs to everyone.”
Indeed, although the film was shot on location in Los Angeles, primarily on the Warner Bros. studio lot, the cast and crew were made up of both American and French citizens. The idea started in France about seven years ago when Hazanavicius was working as a director for Canal +. He was understandably met with skepticism. It wasn’t until years later, after Hazanavicius had written and directed two hits—OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, a spoof of a 1960s spy series starring French actor Jean Bruce, and its sequel OSS 117: Lost in Rio, that people began taking him seriously.
Casting The Artist was easy. Hazanavicius gave the part of leading to man to the dashing star of the OSS 117 series, Jean Dujardin. The female lead went to Berenice Bejo after they met when she starred in Cairo, Nest of Spies. Hazanavicius and Bejo are married and have two children together.
Bejo, an Argentinian-French actress, is best known for her role as Christiana opposite Heath Ledger in the 2001 film A Knight’s Tale. She’s also had some success with leads in foreign films 24 Hours in the Life of a Woman and Cairo, Nest of Spies. Bejo has been nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Artist. And she certainly put in the work. She and Dujardin rehearsed the climatic dance sequence for five months, practicing almost every day in the same studio where Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds rehearsed for Singin’ in the Rain.
Dujardin, who recently made a splash when he crashed a Zooey Deschanel skit on Saturday Night Live, is on a roll. The French actor won the coveted prize of Best Actor at Cannes, where the film premiered, and went on to win Best Actor awards at the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, and the Screen Actor’s Guild Awards. He is a shoe-in to win Best Actor at the Academy Awards–and the Cesar Awards in his hometown. Dujardin, who is described as “France’s George Clooney,” started off as song-and-dance man. He appeared on French talent show Graines de Star in 1996 and scored ain lead in popular French comedy series “Un gars, une fille” that ran during 1999-2003, where he met his wife Alexandra Lamy.
In 2006, he got the lead as the smarmy, comic spy in OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies for which he was nominated for his first Cesar Award for Best Actor and met good friend Michel Hazanavicius. “Michel said to me, ‘I’d like to make a silent movie,’” recalls Dujardin, “and I said ‘That’s nice, I would like to go to the moon!”
Lucky for him the film did get made, and since silence is a universal language, The Artist can be French, American, or anything in between. Oh, and Dujardin has promised that if he wins the Oscar he will accept it, silently.