'The Artist,' 'Hugo' Remind Us of Glories of Silent Movies, Cinema Past

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Silent movies are winning new fans  because of the recent release of  two films,  The Artist, and Hugo, based on Brian Selznick's award-winning book.

Harvey Weinstein, the producer of The Artist, who is more like an  old time movie mogul such as Daryl Zanuck or Samuel Goldwyn than  a  modern focus group driven deal maker, has won a lot of respect for his movies such as Pulp Fiction, Shakespeare In Love, The English Patient, Chicago, and The Aviator.

Likewise Martin Scorsese's Hugo celebrates such great silent stars as Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Louise (Lulu) Brooks, and one of  cinemas great pioneers and technical leaders, Georges Melies (1861-1938). Screenshot from his ground-breaking work Le Voyage dans la Lune ( A Trip to the Moon)  is pictured below. Scorsese is a long-time champion of the preservation of films, and his passion for restoration is expressed in the new film.

Weinstein is betting that audiences will enjoy the mostly-silent, black-and-white film. He told "CBS News," "I love silent movies. I went to film school," he said. "Chaplin, Keaton are the obvious choices and there are many, many more after that. But I followed this director  (who directed The Artist) because he made a James Bond spoof called OS 117. I tried to get my brother to hire him to do Scary Movie, but somehow it didn't work out. So I was a fan of him and knowing he was making a movie in Los Angeles and it's an American movie directed by a French director. ... It's about the early days. But it's really, really funny. Really, really smart, an homage and a love affair with movies and I like those kind of movies."

The film made many end of the year top ten lists. The New York Film Critics Circle and Time Magazine named it the year’s best film. It also was on the top ten lists of Roger Ebert, the New York Post, Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly.

Emanuel Levy interviewed The Artist's director Michel Hazanavicius

Here are some excerpts:

EL: A silent film, in black and white?

MH: Right at the beginning, seven or eight years ago, I fantasized about making a silent film. Probably because the great mythical directors I admire most all come from silent cinema… Hitchcock, Lang, Ford, Lubitsch, Murnau, Billy Wilder (as screenwriter)… But mainly because as a director it makes you face your responsibilities, it makes you tell the story in a very special way. It’s not up to the screenwriter, nor to the actors to tell the story – it really is up to the director. In this genre everything is in the image, in the organization of the signals you’re sending to the audience. And it’s an emotional cinema, it’s sensorial; the fact that you don’t go through a text brings you back to a basic way of telling a story that only works on the feelings you have created. It’s a fascinating way to work. I thought it would be a magnificent challenge and that if I could manage it, it would be very rewarding. If I said it was a fantasy more than a desire, it’s because each time I mentioned it.

I’d only get an amused reaction – no one took this seriously. Then the success of the two “OSS” films changed the way people reacted to: 'I want to make a silent film.' It wasn’t perceived in quite the same way. But above all, Thomas Langmann is not a producer like the others. He didn’t only take what I said seriously, I saw in his eyes that he believed in it. It’s thanks to him that this film became possible. It was no longer a fantasy, but a project. I could start working. I told him I would look for a story, that as soon as I’d found it and it seemed to work, I’d come back and see him…

EL: From silent b/w film silent film about the cinema as theme?

MH: When I started to think about what this silent film would be, I had two possibilities. Either pure entertainment, a spy film in the vein of Spies  by Fritz Lang – which inspired Hergé to create Tintin in my opinion; or a film dealing with more serious issues, probably involving more work. This was more appealing to me, because as a result we would move away from OSS. I wanted to work with Jean again but didn’t want to end up doing the same things. I didn’t want this project to be perceived as a whim, or a gimmick, so I started looking for a story that could fit into this format.

Jean-Claude Grumberg, screenwriter and playwright, but also a friend of my parents, had told me the story of how one day, while he was talking to a producer about a silent movie actor who had been wiped out by the arrival of the talkies, the producer had replied: “That’s wonderful, but the ’20s, too expensive, couldn’t it be set in the ’50s?” I remembered this story and started to work in that direction, to look into that episode of the arrival of the talkies. I don’t make films to reproduce reality, I’m not a naturalistic director. What I love is to create a show and for people to enjoy it and be aware that’s what it is, a show. I am interested in the stylization of reality, the possibility of playing with codes. That how this idea of a film set in the Hollywood of the late ’20s and early ’30s, in black and white, was formed. I wrote very quickly, in four months. I don’t think I’ve ever written a screenplay so quickly.

My starting point, linked with the desire to work once more with Jean (Dujardin) and Bérénice (Bejo), was: a silent movie actor who doesn’t want to hear anything about the talkies. I circled around this character but as soon as I got the idea of this young starlet and the crossed destinies, everything fell into place and made sense, even the themes – pride, fame, vanity.  An old-fashion vision of love, very pure, that also held with the form. Indeed in my opinion, the silent movies that have not aged much, those that have withstood the test of time, even if I don’t want to compare myself to them, are the melodramas. The genre is ideal for this. Simple love stories that are accomplished films, even masterpieces. Moreover, if this could encourage audiences to watch these films again… In any case they gave me the desire to go in this direction, everything being lighter, more optimistic, more joyful despite everything.

EL: Writing a silent movie versus a talking movie?

MH: I didn’t alter the way I work, the only difference being that at a given point, contrarily to what I normally do, I didn’t write down the dialogues.

EL: Films that nourished your imagination and work

MH: There were many. Murnau’s films, particularly Sunrise, which was considered to be the most beautiful film in the history of cinema for a long time, and City Girl, which I tend to prefer… Frank Borzage’s films, which are in the same vein even though they’ve dated more. Murnau is timeless, modern even. Moreover William Fox, the founder of Fox, encouraged Borzage and John Ford to watch Murnau at work. Fox had brought Murnau to America because he was “the best director in the world.” After this experience, Ford made Four Sons, a magnificent film that really resembles a Murnau film, like one director replying to another. It was very moving. At first I watched anything that I could find, the Germans, the Russians, the Americans, the British, the French, but after all, it’s the American silent cinema that nourished me the most, because it suits me more and it is the one that imposed its reality right away… a closeness to the characters, the story…

The Crowd  by King Vidor is a moving example. Chaplin’s films also. But Chaplin is so far above the rest that I was wary of him, because I think that what is true for him is true only for him. His work is unique. Then there are Erich Von Stroheim’s films. One of my favourite is by Tod Browning, The Unknown, with Lon Chaney. There are also some absolutely incredible Fritz Lang films. They nourished me tremendously, even if they have nothing in common with the film I made. It’s films like these that I showed the actors and the crew, more as references than as models of course.

Chicago Tribune critic Michael Philips points out the movies that influenced The Artist.
Theatrical release poster

In recent years, the silent movie star Clara Bow (1905-65), pictured at left, has gained much deserved attention for her energetic and naturalistic style that captivated audiences and made her the most successful star from 1923-33. She was also one of the silent movie stars who successfully made the transition to talkies.

David Stenn, author of  the excellent book, Clara Bow: Runnin’ Wild, describes her this way:

“Fans and critics felt there had never been anyone like her. Where other women acted, she came alive, a three- dimensional being in a two dimension medium. There was an energy, a vitality, a restlessness within her that turned rival actresses into zombies.”

Turner Classic Movies has been celebrating silent movies for some time and produced a documentary: Clara Bow: Discovering the "It" Girl. The documentary describes Bow  as "a one woman revolution who shattered social and sexual taboos. She was a self-described working girl who became a role model for the flapper era by  creating a personality new to the screen - youthful, energetic and frankly sexual.

“Her mother was mentally unstable and her father was often absent. But from an early age, Bow was fascinated with movies and dreamed of acting. Her mother raged against the "evil" pursuit - once even standing over Clara with a knife, threatening to kill her in her sleep. Undeterred, Bow entered a photo beauty contest and won - the prize was a role in a movie. Bow's first film appearance would end up on the cutting room floor. Years later, after she hit it big, the film was re-released with Bow's previously deleted scenes and her name above the title.

“Bow's next picture Down to the Sea in Ships (1922) got her noticed - and she was soon off to Hollywood. The low-budget studio Preferred Pictures, headed by B.P. Schulberg, signed Bow to a contract.

The documentary includes interviews with Schulberg's son, the Oscar-winning writer Budd Schulberg. Discovering the It Girl also features clips from the Bow films, Helen's Babies (1924), My Lady of Whims (1925) and Empty Hearts (1924) which was long thought to be a lost film.

"In 1926, Schulberg went to Paramount and took Bow with him. Her biggest picture yet came in 1926 with Mantra directed by Victor Fleming. The movie got good reviews and did big business. It earned Bow a 5-year contract and quadrupled her salary. Bow would hit the height of her fame the following year with the release of It (1927). The movie was based on a book by the same name, written by Elinor Glyn, an English writer of racy best sellers. The title “It” was considered, at the time, a code word for sex in an era when such things couldn't be mentioned in mixed company. Whatever "It" meant, Schulberg decided Bow had it. He devised a publicity campaign to purchase the film rights to Glyn's book, pay her $50,000 and give her a bit part in the picture - all if she would declare Clara Bow to be the It Girl. The idea paid off big time. It was a smash hit, turning Bow from a mere star into an icon. Later that same year Bow would cement her place in Hollywood history when she appeared in Wings (1927), the first film to win the Oscar® for Best Picture.

"But change was on the way. The coming of sound pictures made Bow nervous. And Schulberg only gave her two weeks to prepare for her sound debut in The Wild Party (1929). The film's success was basically assured since fans were curious to hear Bow's voice. Nonetheless, the microphone frightened Bow whose speech was less than perfect. Her second sound picture Dangerous Curves (1929), directed by Lothar Mendes, proved no easier on her nerves. And to make matters worse, for Love Among the Millionaires (1930) Bow had to sing. Between her growing anxiety on set, courtroom scandals off the set and the start of the Great Depression - which made everything Bow stood for in the 1920s seem reckless - Bow's fame began to plummet. It all culminated in a breakdown on the set of Kick In (1931). Soon after, Clara Bow was released from her Paramount contract, signifying the end of her Hollywood career at the young age of 25."

Bow married cowboy star Rex Bell, had two sons and settled on a ranch in Nevada. "She appeared in just two more films - Fox offered her a staggering $125,000 to make Call Her Savage (1932) and Hoop-La (1933). Bow's post-Hollywood years were not easy; at times she had to be institutionalized. The "It" Girl of the 1920s died September 27, 1965 in Los Angeles."

Susan King wrote in the Los Angeles Times that, "Despite the adulation and love of her fans, Bow couldn't shake off the demons of her childhood, and when her on-screen life began to parallel her wild screen image, many in Hollywood turned their back on her. Washed up at 28, she died in seclusion in 1965.

"Audiences hadn't seen anyone quite like Bow when she burst upon the scene in the mid-'20s. Good girls like Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish were the top female stars of the day. Bow, though, was the epitome of the Roaring '20s flapper.’

"'Clara Bow was sexually aggressive and confident--a real role model,'" says David Stenn, author of Clara Bow: Runnin Wild.  Clara Bow was in charge. She domesticated the men. She taught men to come to her. She never gave up her autonomy or her independence."

"Bow could only relate to men sexually, says Stenn. As her stardom grew, rumors abounded about her hearty sexual life. She was engaged to five men in just four years."

Says Stenn, "If you had gone up to Clara Bow at any point in her life and said, 'You are a great artist,' she would have looked at you and said, 'I don't know what you are talking about. I'm a working goil.' "

Unfortunately, says Stenn, Bow had no one in her corner to give her confidence. "She didn't have that sense of herself as being someone who was creative and gifted."

Film critic Leonard Maltin believes fan adulation made actresses like Bow uncertain of the reality in their own lives. "They live a life of extremes," he says. "It is hard to generalize about so many individuals' lives, yet there are unmistakable patterns. Everybody wants to be loved. But when you are not sure that love is genuine . . . it must be hard."

Despite the sadness in her life, says Maltin, he's never depressed when he watches Bow on screen. "She is like a life force," he says. "Remember, too, in silent film it was all visual. There was no voice or dialogue to communicate with, so to sort of come through the screen, almost to penetrate the screen the way she did was even more remarkable."

The following are the silent films that earned the highest ever gross income in film history, as calculated by Variety magazine in 1932.

1. The Birth of a Nation (1915)
2. The Big Parade (1925)
3. Ben-Hur (1925)
4. Way Down East (1920) The Gold Rush (1925) The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) -
5. The Circus (1928)
6. The Covered Wagon (1923)
7. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
8. The Ten Commandments (1923)
9. Orphans of the Storm (1921)
10. For Heaven's Sake (1926)
11. Seventh Heaven (1926)
12. Abie's Irish Rose (1928)

Visit your local library to obtain:

Clara Bow: Runnin Wild
David Stenn, (1988).

The Parade's Gone By
Kevin Brownlow, (1968).

Sunshine & Shadow
Mary Pickford, (1955).

Silent Star
Colleen Moore, (1968).

The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me
Lillian Gish, (1969).

Marguerite Clark: America's Darling of Broadway and Silent Screen
Curtis Nunn, (1981).

Kops and Custards
Kalton C. Lahue and Terry Brewer, (1972).

One Reel a Week
Fred J. Balshofer and Arthur C. Miller, (1967).

The Girl from God's Country: Nell Shipman and the Silent Cinema
Kay Armatage, (2003).

Seductive Cinema: The Art of the Silent Film
James Card, (1994).

How It Happened Here.
Kevin Brownlow, (1968), (2007).

The War, the West and the Wilderness
London: Secker & Warburg 1979.

Hollywood, the Pioneers
London: Collins, (1979).

Napoleon: Abel Gance's Classic Film
London: Jonathan Cape, (1983).

Mary Pickford Rediscovered