Commenting on the critics with Simon Columb…
Xan Brooks writes for The Guardian on 19th January about the audience members who demanded a refund (!!!) after realising that The Artist was a silent film:
“Stories like this are reliable broadsheet catnip, because they make us feel so superior to those cultural illiterates who don’t read good. What kind of bozo goes to see The Artist without knowing its USP anyway? Who manages to remain so ignorant of the one thing that made the movie a novelty to begin with? Wow, get a load of those morons. Demanding a refund because The Artist is silent? That’s like walking out of a Harry Potter adventure angrily protesting that it’s full of little kids.”
Brooks goes on to comment about how the film is not your usual film – akin to how Drive is not a Fast and Furious heist movie. Rather than feel superior and smug about how ignorant these audience members are it might be better to consider how these audience members were challenged in their expectations of what cinema is. I mean, how many people watched the film without realising it was silent and didn’t ask for a refund … and didn’t leave halfway through. How many people have now seen a silent film for the first time ever and realised what a great genre it is … typing into Google “silent films” to see many pictures of Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Buster Keaton and thought “Hey, I recognise him…” and watched a short video…
In the same way as the two children in Hugo go into their own dream-world about silent-cinema, we can only hope that this film will illuminate a style of filmmaking that is all-but-dead in contemporary cinema. Then when we think about the film winning Best Picture – How many people will watch it purely on this semi-credible award win? “It must be good – it won Best Picture!” they’ll say… and then, the start of something beautiful will happen. Film does not just pass the time, film will then emotionally inform, educate and entertain…
Originally published January 22, 2012. Updated April 10, 2018.
