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©-DR-THE ARTIST de Michel Hazanivicius (2011) p28
15/01/2014 07:22
Trivia
Showing all 57 items
There is not a single 'zoom shot' in the entire movie because Zoom technology did not exist in the movie's time period.
This film is only the second ever silent film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The first was Les ailes (1927) which was the very first film to win the award for Best Picture in the Oscar's inaugural year. As Les ailes (1927) won just two Oscars, for Best Picture, Production and Best Effects, Engineering Effects, The Artist (2011) is the first ever silent film to win Oscars for Best Director, Best Score, Best Costume and Best Actor.
The film is shot with 22 FPS (frames per second). When played at the standard 24 FPS, the action becomes slightly accelerated. Most silent films were shot with 14 to 24 FPS, which makes many of these films appear "faster" in motion when played on modern projection equipment at 24 FPS. When sound films were introduced, the frame rate was standardized at 24 FPS to make it possible to sync the sound with the images.
The breakfast montage in this movie, showing the breakdown of the marriage is a direct tribute to an almost identical montage in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941).
In solitude, George views a reel from one of his silent swashbucklers through a film projector centered within his apartment. The film is in fact a genuine silent film, Le signe de Zorro (1920), which established its star, Douglas Fairbanks, as a real life silent era action hero and matinée idol, the kind George Valentin is portrayed as being within the film. The scene from Zorro is altered, however, substituting actor Jean Dujardin as George for Fairbanks for the close-up shots.
Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo rehearsed the climactic dance sequence for five months, practicing almost every day in the same studio that Debbie Reynolds and Gene Kelly used to rehearse for Chantons sous la pluie (1952). "It was really hard," remembers Bejo, "and even now when I look at the movie I can't believe how fast we're doing it. Sometimes it's like my feet still hurt."
Ludovic Bource won an Academy Award for composing the Best Score for this film despite never having any formal higher educational training in music orchestration nor film score composition. (Bource learned to read music as a child from accordion lessons and studied jazz as a teenager.) Five arrangers and five orchestrators helped realizing his musical ideas with a large-scale symphony orchestra.
In order to include the old "Hollywoodland" sign in several shots, it was necessary to use special visual effects, since the "land" portion of that sign has been gone since 1949 when the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce contracted with the City of Los Angeles to repair and rebuild the sign which had fallen into a state of deterioration. The contract stipulated that "LAND" be removed so as to spell just "Hollywood," reflecting on the section of the city, and not the original housing development of "Hollywoodland."
The role of Jack the dog was actually played by three matching Jack Russell Terriers: Uggie; Dash; and Dude, although The lead dog Uggie did the majority of scenes. All three dogs were colored before the filming began, made to look more alike.
Peppy's house in the film is the house which Mary Pickford lived in before marrying Douglas Fairbanks and moving into the legendary Pickfair mansion (which was torn down in the late 1980s), and the bed where George Valentin wakes up is Mary Pickford's bed. In the briefly-visible dining room, you can also see an English Sheridan dining room table-and-chair set that belonged to Pickford, and the lace tablecloth also belonged to her.
The movie was shot in the 1.33:1 "Academy ratio," just as in silent-film days, since director-writer Michel Hazanavicius considered it 'perfect for actors' because it gives them 'a presence, a power, a strength. They occupy all the space of the screen.'
All the dancing sequences were performed by the actors themselves through heavy rehearsals.
The titles shown on posters and outside cinemas often mirror the plot - for example, "The Thief of His Heart" is visible as Peppy tries on George's coat,"The Lonely Star" when George sadly crosses a street and "Guardian Angel" is the Peppy Miller film visible just after the auction.
The character of George Valentin (played by Jean Dujardin) was based in part on the filmmakers referencing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' book DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS by Jeffrey Vance (Academy Imprints/UC Press, 2008).
This film was one of two films at the 2012 Academy Awards which examined silent cinema. The other movie was Hugo Cabret (2011), both films were heavily nominated, and both pictures ended up winning the same number of Oscars, five.
The character of George Valentin is based on two silent movie stars, Douglas Fairbanks and John Gilbert. Both actors starred in silent movie swashbucklers, and both saw their careers decline with the introduction of sound films. (In Gilbert's case, his "squeaky voice" is often rumored to have caused his decline in the "talkies." But in fact, his clashes with studio head Louis B. Mayer were more to blame.) Both Gilbert and Fairbanks starred in occasional sound films, but never achieved the success that they had known in the silent era. Gilbert died of alcoholism in 1938, at the age of 36, and Fairbanks died of a heart attack (brought on by incessant smoking) in 1939 at age 56.
After Peppy Miller visits George Valentin at his mansion, she says to her male companion in the car, "Take me home. I want to be alone." This can be seen as a reference to the infamous line uttered by Greta Garbo in the film Grand Hôtel (1932), "I want to be alone." Greta Garbo was an actress who was an international icon during Hollywood's silent and classic era, who successfully transitioned into talkies much like Peppy Miller. Another Greta Garbo parallel is that her frequent silent film co-star, John Gilbert, was not able to make a successful transition to the talkies.
The movie was originally shot in color, then converted to black and white.
George and Peppy briefly meet on a staircase with ornate wrought iron filigree. This staircase is in the central atrium of the Bradbury Building located at 304 South Broadway, Los Angeles, California. Dozens of movies, TV shows, and music videos have been filmed there. Most notably, the interior and exterior were featured prominently in Blade Runner (1982).
Peppy Miller ( Bérénice Bejo) does not have an audible spoken line - despite being the talking movie star.
First ever Academy Award Best Picture Oscar winner which was solely produced by a non-English-speaking country. The film was predominantly financed by France with some money coming from Belgium.
When Valentin goes to the hospital after the house fire, he is placed in room #27. 1927 is the year which his character had his last success and also seems to want to remain in professionally.
On BAFTA 2012 Red Carpet, Jean Dujardin said in an interview that the movie was shot in just 35 days.
The Artist is the first film to win Best Picture at both the Independent Spirit Awards and the Academy Awards since Platoon (1986) in 1986.
First completely black-and-white film to win the Best Picture Academy Award since Billy Wilder's La garçonnière (1960) just over half a century earlier. Wilder was actually thanked three times during the Best Picture Oscar acceptance speech for this movie. The film is also the first black-and-white film to win this award since the predominantly black-and-white La liste de Schindler (1993) eighteen years earlier.
Jean Dujardin became the first ever French actor to win a Best Actor Academy Award when he won an Oscar for this film.
This movie is considered to be the most ever awarded French Film in film history.
The first Academy Award Best Picture winner to be presented in a 4:3 aspect ratio since Marty (1955) won this Oscar fifty-six years earlier.
The first PG-13 rated (in the USA) Best Picture Academy Award Oscar Winner since Million Dollar Baby (2004) won eight years earlier.
The Weinstein's second consecutive Best Picture winner; the previous year's Best Picture Winner was Le discours d'un roi (2010).
First black-and-white film to win the Best Costume Academy Award since the discontinuance of the Best Costume (black-and-white) Oscar in 1967. The last black-and-white film to win a Costume Oscar, for Best Costume (black-and-white), was Qui a peur de Virginia Woolf? (1966) forty-five years earlier.
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