Forget Paris
The refusal of Jean Dujardin‘s Valentin to venture into sound is due to his French accent, which he fears will be a career killer. Why not then return to France, “the home of cinema”, and join Marcel Pagnol, Jean Renoir, Jean Vigo and Marcel Carne “who were making, or about to make, films that entrance audiences to this day?,” asks The Economist‘s “Prospero.”
This is not an option, he explains, because Valentin “is so in love with Hollywood that he would rather fail there, even to the brink of suicide, than return to ply his trade in France. If the actor’s vocal ‘flaw’ had been an accent that revealed unacceptably working-class origins, sympathy would be genuinely merited. Still, this is a major star and, we are assured by the very title, a true artist. But he’d rather die! He’d rather be a second-rate hoofer in Hollywood than anything else anywhere.”
[Deleted, poster banned]
I’m starting to get the feeling that Wells doesn’t dig The Artist.
Neither Pagnol, Vigo, Renoir, nor Carne, all of them behind the camera talent, ever made it in Hollywood, so going back was a clear option. For actors who made their fame in Hollywood, it was a risky move, but this is not about that at all; it is a veiled right-wing-nut dog whistle about ‘going back to where you came from’. The last refuge of scoundrels, indeed.
“Still, this is a major star and, we are assured by the very title, a true artist.”
I think one of the movie’s failings it that it seems to think he’s an artist, but he kind of fails at being an artist, and falls back on being an entertainer. Which is the natural cycle of a lot of movie stars, especially back then. I’m not sure if the movie expects us to think of him as an artist, but it didn’t convince me he was one.
So Valentin is the French LexG?
Once they’ve seen the lights of Hollywood, how you gonna keep ‘em down in French cinema?
@Kakahirara. Exactly… Is she the French LexG..?
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