I want The Artist to beat Hugo, not because of 3D, but because Hugo is a crap film. A seriously overrated waste.
The Artist (new silent film)
- Thread starter The Lensman
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I want The Artist to beat Hugo, not because of 3D, but because Hugo is a crap film. A seriously overrated waste.
And it did! Win Best Picture, that is!
Why would you think that has anything to do with it? That restoration was in the works well before anyone had heard of The Artist. It was done for Paramount's centennial, since it was their first film to win Best Picture (in addition to being the first).
I think he means that it's no coincidence that it was released right before the Oscars in which a silent film is being nominated. It may have been in the works before anyone ever heard of The Artist, but the fact that that is getting a lot of attention with many nominations means that they're using this newfound opportunity to promote Wings, when people might be starting to garner an interest in silent films.
VICTORY! I'm thrilled.
I taped the show, but was pleased as punch for The Artist wins. Of course the only award not recorded was "Best Picture" as it ran out of space, so I had to jump online to see.
I've been interested in seeing Hugo, is it really that bad?
And I too think that the Wings release was timed right for the Oscars. Not that I mind, I recorded it off TCM years ago and would like a better copy. I'll have to look into DVD though.
Would like to see silent movies get a little boost, maybe some movies still in the vaults finally get a release and some films a re-release. Strike while the irons hot fellas!!
It's actually very good. Both honour early filmmaking in their own ways, Hugo perhaps more technically, as it tends to be as much about George Milliers, one of the pioneers of silent film, as it is about Hugo. The Artist does it by being a silent film about silent films.
Or Ben Kingsley as we call him round here.
Yeah, I wasn't sure on the spelling, but couldn't be bothered to write in the accents.
I disagree. I think it wasn't very good. The story lacks focus, and it feels very much like a vehicle for Scorsese (DRINK), to show how much he LOVES movies. The last 30 minutes feels tacked on...
I came to see a movie about a kid who lives in a train station who lost his daddy... and then it turns into something else, halfway through.
If you want to honor early filmmaking, one doesn't have to be so quite on the nose about it. The Artist honors early filmmaking in a much stronger way: making a great film using the techniques of early filmmaking.
That's Sir Ben Kingsley
Finally made the time to go and see the Artist tonight and thank God I did. A wonderful, wonderful film...had me smiling as I left the cinema
Melies was one of the most forward-looking and technologically innovative filmmakers in history; Scorsese continued to push technical boundaries in paying tribute to him (fitting that a Melies tribute film should win all those technical statues).
So? All of that doesn't make Hugo a better movie. It's still stuck in it's sentimentalism. Stuck in it's TELLING not SHOWING.
Both Melies and Scorsese are GENIUSES. No doubt. But, that doesn't mean everything they touch turned or will turn to gold. Scorsese should have a truck load of Oscars for his work. But, not for Hugo.
I didn't say it did. I just said it's an equally valid approach. Scorsese was attracted to the children's book because it related to his love of cinema, and his own experiences as a frequently-sick child for whom the movies were really important growing up in the 40s.
All of this is a little off-topic in the thread for The Artist, of course.
All of this is a little off-topic in the thread for The Artist, of course.
I didn't say it wasn't a VALID approach. I think the Artist took a BETTER approach.
I liked both films, but I preferred Hugo by a thin margin. I can't get over the use of a recognizable cue from Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo at the emotional high point of The Artist. It was oddly jarring; without an obvious reference to the Hitchcock movie in a film filled with movie references, it just took me out of the movie. It would have been less objectionable if the movie had used music from other films earlier, but it had a mostly original (and delightful) score for most of it's running time.
I think the notion that The Artist will set off a renaissance of silent cinema is a bit silly, though. Hopefully, it will lead to a number of silent films being restored and released onto home video. It's hard enough to see many silent films in archives, let alone on home video.
I think the notion that The Artist will set off a renaissance of silent cinema is a bit silly, though. Hopefully, it will lead to a number of silent films being restored and released onto home video. It's hard enough to see many silent films in archives, let alone on home video.
The key indicator that that sort of thing will never happen is that it took about, what, three years from the release of The Jazz Singer for the silent genre to basically go extinct? This was when audiences had known nothing but silent cinema for all their lives and had seen all the best the genre had to offer, and yet they still deserted it en masse and never looked back. Black-and-white held its own with colour for three decades, by comparison.
Agreed. I hope it will give people motivation to look at silent films, but, it's not going to reignite the style.
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