ROGER EBERTs EXEMPLARY REVIEWS: JOURNALIST AS CINEMA EDUCATOR

Posted 1.9.12 by John Broughton

Here is a recent review by Roger Ebert, which I have had the hubris to comment upon in the text, suggesting for potential FERA blog reviewers some features that one can see in a good film review written by one of our great living film educators. Do please send reactions and further comments, or send in a similarly annotated film review that you admire, saying what qualities you think make a good film review.

Is it possible to forget that "The Artist" is a silent film in black and white, and simply focus on it as a movie? No? That's what people seem to zero in on. They cannot imagine themselves seeing such a thing. Always good to start and end with a remark about the nature of cinema itself. A film review is always a review of (all) movies i.e. film itself At a sneak preview screening here, a few audience members actually walked out, saying they didn't like silent films. I was reminded of the time a reader called me to ask about an Ingmar Bergman film. "I think it's the best film of the year," I said. "Oh," she said, "that doesn't sound like anything we'd like to see." Nice to start with an amusing story! (here capturing the low/high dialectic in film). Note how from the start Ebert positions himself as an educator though not didactically Here is one of the most entertaining films in many a moon, a film that charms because of its story, its performances and because of the sly way it plays with being silent and black and white. Frame the analysis with a description of the style, the overall aesthetic of the film (rather than focusing immediately on content). "The Artist" knows you're aware it's silent and kids you about it. Not that it's entirely silent, of course; like all silent films were, it's accompanied by music. You know like in a regular movie when nobody's talking? Here hes getting at a macro-issue: the relation between sound and image. Concepts helpt to organise the review. Big concepts, foundational concepts are often the best for this (e.g. 3D in Avatar and Hugo, animation in Enchanted, narrative vs SF/X in Bruce Willis movies). One of its inspirations was probably "Singin' in the Rain," (a brilliant historical intertextual reference often something were watching is itself historic or refers back to another historical movie or genre or trend e.g. Midnight in Paris harks back to several other time travel or more precisely time portal movies). a classic about a silent actress whose squeaky voice didn't work in talkies and about the perky little unknown actress who made it big because hers did. In that film, the heroine (Debbie Reynolds) fell in love with an egomaniacal silent star but a nice one, you know? Point to governing contradictions in the movie e.g. the lead boy in Hairspray, that Nicky Blonsky falls in

love with, is an egocentric idiot who betrays his girlfriends; Romeo in R&J is a narcissist and womaniser at the beginning; George Clooneys face looks acromegalic in The Descendants; Pierce Brosnan is supposed to be suave in Mama Mia but his singing is atrocious!). Played by Gene Kelly in 1952 and by Jean Dujardin now, he has one of those dazzling smiles you suspect dazzles no one more than himself. Lovely turns of phrase (achance to be moralising!) Dujardin, who won best actor at Cannes 2011, looks like a cross between Kelly and Sean Connery, (referring back to other movies, as possible influences e.g. disaster films influence on Melancholia (Deep Impact , Asteroid), or death of child films like Dont Look Now on Anti-Christ) and has such a command of comic timing and body language remarks on nuances of performances (e.g. the cold remoteness or alexithymia of Willem Dafoe, which he satirizes in Mr Beans Holiday (quite a good movie I thought)) that he might have been well, a silent star. Dujardin is George Valentin, who has a French accent that sounds just right in Hollywood silent films, if you see what I mean. The industry brushes him aside when the pictures start to speak, and he's left alone and forlorn in a shabby apartment with only his faithful dog, Uggie, for company. Note how far into the review he starts on the plot in other words, its not a major thing for Ebert, or it is a footnote to his bigger picture remarks, his sweeping gestures about cinema, history, aesthetics, and theory of the image/sound relation. At a crucial moment, he's loyally befriended by Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), who when they first met, was a hopeful dancer and has now found great fame. The fans love her little beauty mark, which Valentin penciled in with love when she was a nobody. Attention to little details (the odd ? mark on her forehead in Sweetie, Brando reading his lines off a bar of soap in Last Tango in Paris, Bill Nihys odd flourishes in Love Actually and Pirate Radio) As was often the case in those days, the cast of "The Artist" includes actors with many different native tongues, because what difference did it make? John Goodman makes a bombastic studio head, and such familiar faces as James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller, Missi Pyle and Ed Lauter turn up. A bit dismissive re actors or stars; always peps things up to include some abrasive editorialising asides? At 39, Jean Dujardin is well-known in France. I've seen him in a successful series of spoofs about OSS 117, a Gallic secret agent who mixes elements of 007 and Inspector Clouseau. Nice that re recognises French film, rather than just comparing to Hollywood (in fact, here the reverse, implying that the US steals foreign ideas, here French ones Clouseau being the name of a famous French film director? Note also Maria Hodeks sly Francophilic asides in her FERA review of Ratatouille). He would indeed have made a great silent star. His face is almost too open and expressive for sound, except comedy. As Norma Desmond, the proud silent star in "Sunset Boulevard," hisses: "We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!" Lovely internal reference intertextuality. Also referring us back to the IMAGE always good to say something about imagery, visual composition, visual culture etc, how the visual appearance of the film strikes you (Ryan DeWitt did that in his FERA review of Anti_Christ, as did Margaret Bates in FERA review of

Melancholia) Dujardin's face serves perfectly for the purposes here. More than some silent actors, he can play subtle as well as broad, and that allows him to negotiate the hazards of some unbridled melodrama at the end. I felt a great affection for him. Critical remarks re the pluses and minuses of major performances in the film (e.g. bizarre performances of Eliz McGovern in Downton Abbey, of Brando in Missouri Breaks, Steve Carell in Little Miss Sunshine, Greg Kinnear in Nurse Betty, of Crispin Glover in anything) I've seen "The Artist" three times, and each time it was applauded, perhaps because the audience was surprised at itself for liking it so much.Comments on relation to audience (key for Barthes etc.) It's good for holiday time, speaking to all ages in a universal language. Silent films can weave a unique enchantment. During a good one, I fall into a reverie, an encompassing absorption that drops me out of time. You can always talk abt your subjective reaction if it is brief and relevant, makes a point (Mary Schuler DeWitt did that re gender in her Hugo review) I also love black and white, which some people assume they don't like. For me, it's more stylized and less realistic than color, more dreamlike, more concerned with essences than details. Modestly he posits all this as a matter of personal taste but the educator in him all the while transcends that and points to universals Giving a speech once, I was asked by parents what to do about their kids who wouldn't watch B&W. "Do what Bergman's father did to punish him," I advised. "Put them in a dark closet and say you hope the mice don't run up their legs." Lovely use sense of humour to round it all out?