"The Artist": Clever and Charming

I'm about to praise a fairly new movie, but in order to appreciate it fully, let's invoke some words from Samuel Johnson, in Adventurer #67: 

Happiness is enjoyed only in proportion as it is known; and such is the state or folly of man, that it is known only by experience of its contrary.

Thus we must contrast this enjoyable movie with the cultural sinkhole that Hollywood has become.

You must be brave enough to look into the abyss and appreciate how truly dreadful most movies are...

...the formulaic date movies, obligatory bedroom scenes, boring computer graphics, the F word in every other sentence, MTV-style of cut-cut-cut action trash...

I really didn't know what to expect when I picked this DVD at the public library. It looked like some kind of furrin' or independent flick. During the opening credits there was mention of several French corporations or government funding agencies -- now that was a scary way to start a movie! (But actually, it was a Hollywood movie.)

It was a black-and-white, "silent" movie, with no spoken dialogue but with a fun musical soundtrack throughout, and a few sound effects. (Such was Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights", made in the early days of "talkies.")

This was a risky movie.The movie challenged the audience to adjust to a past era. How much "retro" would a modern audience be able to play along with? How many of the nuances of a silent film would even be noticed? One scene was reminiscent of the way Judy Garland used to move her head when she was confused or curious. 

The climax had quite an effect on me. Then I realized it was really the soundtrack that was doing it, rather than anything I saw on the screen. I've heard this music before, but where? Finally I realized that it was borrowed from one of the soundtrack-composer-Greats of a few decades ago. What seemed most curious was that cognitive dissonance itself -- and not what was heard or seen -- was the true source of pleasure.

Another odd experience at the movies might be related to this. The only time I ever misted up (heavily!) at the end of a movie was when watching Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights" -- you know, the one with the blind girl. To a modern viewer there is a compound layer of cognitive dissonance when watching this movie: he must adjust to a silent movie, firstly. But in addition, the leading character was going through her own cognitive dissonance with being able see after a surgeon restored her vision. Putting yourself in her shoes makes you almost disbelieve how you normally perceive reality.

Perhaps the specialness of these two movies is related to the tricks an outdoorsman can play on his own mind:

• tricks such as ignoring what your eyes tell you, while emphasizing the texture of the ground as it feels to the naked paws of your dog; 
• thinking of bird sounds or the kinetic rhythm of its wingbeats, rather than how pretty the bird is; 
• visualizing the topography in terms of watersheds rather than highways and towns;
• visualizing the topography in terms of interdigitated ridgelines, as a type of "negative arroyo";
• or dwelling on the motion of a normally static animal, or vica versa. 

It is one of the reasons for railing at the passive consumption of postcard scenery. In order for the world to make a big impression on us, we need to be knocked out of, not just daily routines and ordinary locations, but also, the normal patterns of cognition.