The Artist Premiere’s at Alliance Francaise
2011 Academy Award Best Picture winner, The Artist, held its Kenyan premiere in a packed Mary Louise Leakey Auditorium at the Alliance Francaise on 4th June. The Michel Hazanicius-directed romantic silent film about Hollywood transition has a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and topped most Top 10 film charts of 2011. Despite receiving serious competition from Tree Of Life, The Descendants and Hugo in the early parts of the 2011 awards season, it went on to win five Oscars at the Academy Awards. The film also made TIME’s list for Top 10 best films of the decade.
Jean “French George Clooney” Dujardin plays a charming silent-era Hollywood star, George Valentin, who at the peak of his career refuses to change in an artistic landscape that is. It is 1929 and filmmakers have figured out how to include sound in film. Valentin dismisses the technology, which costs him his career. As his reputation declines, a young star (Berenice Bejo) he helped make rises to stardom. For his performance, he won a Golden Globe, Oscar and best actor at Cannes Pris d’interpretation masculine among others.
Other than picture and actor, the film won three other Oscars for the direction, Ludovic Bource’s score and Mark Bridges’ costume design. It was nominated for five more: Hazanivicius’ original screenplay, Berenice Bejo’s acting, Guillaume Schiffman’s camerawork, Anne-Sophie Bion’s cutting and Robert Gould and Laurence Bennett’s art direction. It also won seven BAFTAs, six Cesars (the French Oscars), four Independent Spirit Awards, a slot in The National Board of Reviews 10 notable films among numerous wins and countless nominations.
In a year that was filled with films about filmmaking history, The Artist stood out and probably won because it reminded an old-fashioned academy about a golden age passed them by. Despite the film being shot almost entirely in California, it is regarded as a French film because of the backing, director and lead characters.
