I experienced a rare and very special treat yesterday when Matt and I went to see Michel Hazanavicius’ gorgeous black and white silent film, The Artist. It’s a wonderful tribute to the old Hollywood glamour of early movies and their stars. Just like Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, iconic silent film actors from the early 1900s, Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo play George Valentin and Peppy Miller. They are both graceful, charming and capable of great physical comedy while capturing tragedy and sadness in their expressive faces. Set during the time of transition between silent film and “the talkies”, George is being left behind by new cinema to make way for the young Peppy. The movie is beautiful, touching, clever and I loved it.
I’ve been thinking about the difference between old Hollywoodland and our modern tinsel town. I’ve only experienced early movie glamour through films made decades ago, so my romanticism is natural. I think Sally Jupiter (Silk Spectre to the rest of you) said it best when she told her daughter “Every day, the future looks a little bit darker. But the past… even the grimy parts of it… keep on getting brighter.” And back then, reporters didn’t stalk starlets to post pictures of them getting out of cars without their panties on. Matt was discussing with me the unspoken code of early Hollywood, keeping private lives out of the public eye, at least the seedy stuff. Especially the bedroom secrets, the affairs and the booze and the drugs, all the stuff that’s paparazzi gold and big news today. It’s a trashy world out there. It’s probably always been, but now it’s all our business and the information is at my fingertips. I’m sure lots of 1920s starlets had sex tapes, but they didn’t make their way around the internet.
Watching The Artist, I was also reminded about how talented some movie stars are. The early actors who could play instruments, sing, dance and tell a great story just with their eyes. Now we’ve got the Kardashians. I guess that’s a bit unfair, I did watch JGL and Zooey Deschanel on New Years perform a little song... Maybe we do have some modern, talented actors who might be able to steal hearts even a hundred years from now.
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