"The Artist" for Best Picture?

Originally posted on Tumblr 9th Feb 2012.

While we're on black and white films, and with the Oscars bearing down on us, I want to take a moment to talk about one of the nominees for Best Picture, Michel Hazanavicius's The Artist.



Along with Hugo, this is the only Best Picture nominee I saw in a theatre (sadly an out-of-town multiplex, though I will be seeing it again at my local indie in March). I should start by saying I thought it was a wonderful film, telling a good story, with engaging characters. However, the fact it is many people's favourite for Best Picture leaves me with a slightly queasy feeling.

My concern is that, as enjoyable as the film was, what it manages to do is recreate how all films were made prior to the silent era. Apart from the nightmare scene, which I thought was wonderfully done, it feels like rewarding a film for being at least as good as one that is 80 years old. What it did it did without making comment on the relative values of the silent and sound eras.

There was a time when innovation and progression were rewarded. What stands out to me about this year's Best Picture nominees is that most of them are in some way regressive. The Artist, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, War Horse, The Help and Tree of Life are all set in the past with various degrees of idealisation (though from what I have heard Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris has the most sophisticated message and, like Tree of Life, uses this as a jumping off point). Okay, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is set in a definite time over a decade ago, now, but it is still in the modern era.

There is nothing wrong with being aware of the past. Hopefully we can keep what is good, and discard what is not, but I worry when we reach a stage where it seems that we have nothing of value to say about the present, at least without doing it through the prism of the past. It is certainly true to say that the past, like fantasy and science fiction, can be ways of discussing contemporary events without discussing them, but the overt nostalgia of the films and movie selected bothers me for reasons I can't quite put my finger on.