Jean Dujardin (left) plays silent film star George Valentin, who meets ingénue Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo).

We wondered why anyone today would want to see a silent film in black and white, until we saw The Artist, French writer-director Michel Hazanavicius’ delightful Hollywood fable that’s resonating with audiences and critics alike and is already on most Oscar shortlists.

The story, which begins in 1927, follows a silent-film idol named George Valentin (French comic actor Jean Dujardin, voted Best Actor at Cannes) whose star fades with the advent of talkies while an ingénue (Bérénice Bejo) he meets finds fame and fortune.

Bejo, 35, prepared by taking tap-dance lessons and watching old movies, particularly those starring Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich and Gloria Swanson, whose autobiography she read. The challenge, she says, “was to find how the actresses were in the ’30s. You just try to embody a character and have fun with it and try to find how she moves and how she smiles.” Hazanavicius met Bejo, now his wife, six years ago when he cast her opposite Dujardin in the spy spoof OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, and wrote the role of Peppy Miller for her.

Cars, costumes, and props of the late ’20s-early ’30s era, shooting on studio back lots and iconic locations like screen legend Mary Pickford’s former home and having the scores from Sunset Boulevard and Vertigo playing on set created the Hollywood milieu for the cast, but Bejo otherwise found the acting process the same as on any film. Even though the dialogue isn’t heard, she adds, “We did have lines.”

For Penelope Ann Miller, 47, who plays the wife of Dujardin’s character, it was challenging to convey emotion without sound, “relying on our faces, feelings and expressions but not being over the top” while being faithful to the period. “People dressed differently, they carried themselves differently, they spoke differently. It was a fine line and you didn’t want to cross it,” says Miller, who had silent movie experience making the film-within-a-film sequences in Chaplin.

“To me, this film is a love letter to not only filmmaking but art and art forms,” Miller says. “And I just love that we can go back to the simplicity and basics of it and just realize how beautiful and moving and uplifting it can be.”

Hazanavicius hopes that The Artist won’t get lost in the crush of splashy (and noisy) holiday blockbusters and more conventional serious-drama fare with marquee stars, and is counting on word of mouth to keep that from happening. “Once they’re inside the theaters they enjoy the movie,” he says. “I hope they’ll tell their friends.”

The Artist opens today in New York City and Los Angeles and expands to more theaters nationwide throughout the holiday season.

Are you willing to check out a new silent black-and-white movie?

Photo credit: Courtesy the Weinstein Company

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