Jean Dujardin took home the golden statue at this year’s Academy Awards but he was only one part of the wonderful, silent ensemble behind ‘The Artist’. Another key addition to the cast was James Cromwell, who plays Clifton, the main character George’s trusted and steadfast chauffeur.

A native of Los Angeles, Cromwell is a child of the movie business; both parents, as well his grandmother and stepmother, worked in the industry. “My father arrived in Hollywood at the advent of the sound era and became a director in the 30s. My mother was DeMille’s leading lady when he first moved into sound pictures,” the actor remarks.

Prior to meeting with director Michel Hazanavicius, Cromwell reviewed a presentation book the filmmaker had put together that included detailed storyboards. “The book was wonderful. Michel had put a lot of thought into how exactly he would make this movie, and had a very clear vision. To me, the project was too good to pass up, and I’m certainly glad I didn’t.”

Cromwell describes the chauffeur as a steady, reassuring presence in George’s life. “Clifton is more than a chauffeur. He’s really George’s right-hand man and he cares for him a lot,” says Cromwell.  At the same time, there is a formality to their relationship that is true to the period and true to Clifton’s nature. “Clifton is old-school: gentlemanly, quiet, unobtrusive, sympathetic, handy and dependable.”

Hazanavicius also sought out actress Penelope Ann Miller, who portrayed silent movie actress Edna Purviance in the biopic ‘Chaplin’ with Robert Downey Jr. In ‘Chaplin’, Miller had played silent scenes recreating portions of Chaplin’s work, and she was intrigued by the notion of acting in a feature-length silent.

The period setting also held great appeal to the actress, a lifelong movie buff who  is extremely knowledgeable about Hollywood cinema history. She gravitated to the part of Doris, George’s increasingly disaffected wife.

“I saw a lot of emotion to work with in Doris,” says Miller.  “At the point where we come into the movie, there’s clearly some tension in the marriage. Doris is a proud woman, upright, and it’s very important to her to keep up the appearance of a stable marriage. They’ve grown apart, but deep down, Doris still loves George, and still wants him to adore her. I think she’s suffering as a result of that.”

‘The Artist’ was an unusual casting proposition in Los Angeles: a film without dialogue and only a handful of supporting roles, some quite small. Nonetheless, the film attracted an ensemble of accomplished, well-known actors whose faces will be very familiar to American moviegoers.

Among them: Missi Pyle, who plays Constance, an actress who is none too pleased when George upstages her; Beth Grant, who plays Peppy’s maid; Ed Lauter, who plays Peppy’s butler; Ken Davitan, who plays a pawnbroker; Joel Murray, who plays a policeman; and Bitsie Tulloch, who plays George’s co-star in a jungle adventure.

Veteran star Malcolm McDowell heard about the production and requested a meeting with Hazanavicius. “I only had a very small part to offer him, almost an extra, and he was delighted!” marvels the filmmaker. “I really had tremendous good fortune with the entire cast.”

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The newly Oscar awarded ‘The Artist’ is Michel Hazanavicius’s third film with director of photography Guillaume Schiffman, who shot both of Hazanavicius OSS comedies. “With Guillaume, it’s more than just collaboration,” Hazanavicius remarks. “We’ve done films together, we’ve done ads together, and we know each other very well.

As soon as I had the idea of ‘The Artist’, I talked to him about it. I gave him tons of films to watch and he did a lot of professional research about the techniques, cameras and lenses of the time. The idea was the same for all us, on both sides of the camera: do some research; nourish ourselves; understand the rules thoroughly in order to be able to forget them at the end.”

Hazanavicius had storyboarded the entire screenplay for ‘The Artist’, and during preproduction he and Schiffman spent countless hours looking at these blueprints and discussing their options. In a black and white silent movie, lighting and color scale become critical tools of the storytelling, Schiffman points out.

“Because there’s no dialogue, light has to tell you something, the shadows have to tell you something. Michel told me how he envisaged the story, how he was going to play with the blacks and whites, shadow and light, and a lot of grays. What is fascinating about Michel is that he never loses sight of the story he wants to tell. You can’t produce only beautiful images and lose the audience in the process. The goal isn’t to make the audience go ‘Wow!’ at each shot but to captivate them and, in this case, to move them.”

Schiffman describes the film as a rare creative opportunity. “A black and white movie; 1.33 format; 20s and 30s style: it’s a dream come true for a cinematographer. What a pleasure to revisit this moment of cinema history, particularly today, when we are moving towards digital supremacy.”

As pre-production got underway in Los Angeles, news of ‘The Artist’ spread quickly in the film community. The black and white style and period setting offered interesting and unusual work for all the industry’s trades: set design, costume design, hair and makeup, camera, electric, etc. Hazanavicius was delighted to find himself surrounded by some of best and most experienced professionals in Los Angeles, all of them eager to contribute.

“Everyone got very excited,” the filmmaker smiles. “I think people appreciated the fact that this was a movie about their profession. People from the camera department offered to make special lenses, old projectors were pulled out of closets … it was very special.”

One of the earliest hires was production designer Laurence Bennett, who has worked extensively with writer/director Paul Haggis on films including the Oscar-winning ‘Crash’. Hazanavicius notes that he had very specific elements he wanted to incorporate into the film’s design, responsibilities that Bennett took on.

“The Artist’ is about the fall of an actor, so I was always looking for locations with stairs. I wanted the actors to go down, and down, and down, sequence after sequence,” says Hazanavicius. “It’s the same with mirrors; it’s the idea of representation because George is an actor. There are always many George Valentins in the frame. Larry brought his own sensibility to the production design, while achieving all the very precise effects I asked him to create. He did a great job.”

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Michel Hazanavicius had the opportunity to fulfill his dream of a silent era film with his Oscar-winning work ‘The Artist’ and found another enthusiastic colleague in costume designer Mark Bridges, a lifelong fan of silent cinema who remembers seeing classics like ‘Wings’ as a child.

Over the course of his career, Bridges has outfitted films set in virtually every era of the 20th Century, making key contributions to the likes of Paul Thomas Anderson’s early 20th Century epic ‘There Will Be Blood’ and 70s-era drama ‘Boogie Nights’, and David O. Russell’s 80s boxing drama ‘The Fighter’.

For ‘The Artist’, Bridges happily immersed himself in research, studying silent films, old publicity stills and day-in-the-life candid photos to get a feel for the impeccable tailoring of the era and the elegant clothing that a movie star like George Valentin would have worn in his leisure time.

For the character of Peppy Miller, he found inspiration in early Joan Crawford films, which capture her evolution from average chorus girl to dynamic jazz baby and finally to glamorous star. The silent backstage comedy ‘Show People’ provided clues about what studio workers wore, as did a short film, ‘1925 MGM Studio Tour’, made on the MGM lot.

Bridges found both garments and ideas in Hollywood’s professional costume shops, including The Collection at Western Costume, Motion Picture Costume Company, United American Costume Company, and Palace Costume Company. “Here in Hollywood, we’re really set up to do a movie like ‘The Artist’. I could go to any of these costume shops I regularly use, go through 100 dresses or 50 dresses, and something would read to me ‘Peppy,’” he says.

Milliners freshened and re-blocked hats that had spent decades in boxes. Veteran tailors made duplicate formal wear for Jean Dujardin, and expert shoemakers copied vintage shoes. Some original garments were in fine condition and were used in the film, including a nightgown worn by Bérénice Bejo and a tennis dress Bridges found in a shop.

But many vintage items were too fragile or dilapidated to be worn, and were instead copied and made in new fabrics. Sometimes old was incorporated into the new; when Bridges found a panel of Art Deco-styled vintage brocade, he used it to trim the dress Bejo wears during the scene when Peppy is being interviewed. Hazanavicius was impressed by Bridge’s talent and work ethic.

“Mark Bridges knows everything, and I think he works maybe thirty hours a day!” the director enthuses. “He’s very perceptive and he knows that small details can be very powerful. For example, there’s an ellipse from ’29 to ’31, when George’s decline accelerates. I asked Mark to adjust Jean’s costume, and to make it a little bit larger so we have the feeling that his character has shrunken a little bit. And Mark did that, very subtly, with a lot of taste. His work throughout brought so much to the film.”

Music is an indispensable part of silent film storytelling, serving variously as emphasis and counterpoint to the actions and emotions onscreen. For this critical element, Hazanavicius turned to his longtime collaborator Ludovic Bource, who has scored all the director’s films since his feature debut, 1998’s ‘Mes Amies’.

Like the other collaborators working on the film, Bource did his homework, listening to scores by legendary Hollywood composers such as Max Steiner, Franz Waxman and Bernard Hermann; music written by Chaplin for his films; and the 19th Century composers whose work was the foundation of Steiner, et al.  With that knowledge absorbed, Bource was then free to write the score that would help tell the story of ‘The Artist’.

He began working on the score before production began, coming up with melodies and themes based on the screenplay and storyboards. Once production began, Hazanavicius sent him rushes on a regular basis. “I immersed myself in the rushes as they came in, and in the performances of Bérénice and Jean,” Bource remembers.

“Watching these magnificent images as they arrived was very inspiring. The hardest thing, particularly with Jean’s character George, was to respect the combination of comedy and emotion. As a result, rather than pastiche or spoof, we worked – a bit like Chaplin – along the lines of a light sophistication. And for the tap dance sequence, I wrote music that was essentially big band/jazz, which was a pleasure.”

Work continued on the film’s music during the editing process, when Bource worked with Hazanavicius to refine the music and match it to the  final scenes. Bource recorded the score in Brussels with the Flanders Philharmonic Orchestra. Says Bource, “I recorded with 80 musicians: 50 string players, 4 French horns, 4 trombones, 5 percussionists who ran around all over the place, a harpist, 10 technicians, 5 orchestrators, 3 mixers – it was sublime.

I was lucky enough to get marvelous people. They told me it had been a long time since they had felt this way while recording the music for a film. It was very moving and gratifying.”

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It was during the making of ‘OSS 117 – Nest of Spies’ in 2005 that Michel Hazanavicius first mentioned his dream about making a silent movie to that film’s stars, Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo. A dream which eventually won him glory at this year’s Academy Awards.

“We thought it was wonderful madness; we never imagined such a project could ever be achieved,” Bejo acknowledges. When Hazanavicius finally set to work on his silent movie story, he wrote the roles of George Valentin and Peppy Miller with Dujardin and Bejo in mind, certain they would excel in the format.

“Jean is as good in close-ups, with his facial expressions, as he is in long shots, with his body language,” he comments. “Not all actors are good with both; Jean is. He also has a timeless face that can easily be ‘vintage.’  Bérénice has that quality, too. She exudes freshness, positivity, goodness. I thought viewers would easily accept the idea that she would stand out from the crowd and become a big star in Hollywood. George Valentin and Peppy Miller are, in a way, Jean and Bérénice fantasized by me!”

Dujardin knew that the filmmaker had been researching the silent era and watching numerous films, but he had little idea of what to expect when Hazanavicius gave him the screenplay for ‘The Artist’. “He handed it to me, slightly feverish: ‘Read this, but don’t laugh, do you think it’s possible? What do you think of it? Would you be ready to do it?’” the actor remembers.

“I read it in one sitting. My first thought was that it was really gutsy to have pursued his fantasy all the way. As was the case with each of Michel’s scripts, I thought it was really well written, with everything perfectly in place. Up until then, we’d made comedies where we had a lot of fun with characters and situations.

‘The Artist’ had comedy and action, yet it was full of emotion. I was touched by all it said about cinema, its history and actors. I loved the premise, the meeting between George Valentin and Peppy Miller, the story of crossed destinies.” Dujardin was moved by the transformation George undergoes as he grapples with the arrival of sound. “At first George doesn’t ask himself a lot of questions.

He’s not arrogant, but he’s sure of himself, confident in the charm that he assumes so easily,” the actor remarks. “George is very showy, always acting. It’s as if he was only an image, a face on a poster. Then, little by little, this confidence, this lightness starts to crack. He starts sliding towards the bottom. Luckily, there’s an angel watching over him. At the end he is not a photo but a man — only a man. I liked this path.”

Bejo is Hazanavicius’s partner and so had the closest view of the story’s development and evolution. She reports that Peppy Miller began life as an incidental character, less central to the story than the dog who is George’s best friend. Remembers Bejo, “Michel told me, ‘There will be a girl who will appear here and there.

It will only be a small part but I’d really like you to do it.’ I would joke, ‘Even the dog has a bigger part than me!’ Later, Michel told me, ‘it’s strange when you write: you create characters, a story, but at a given point they become stronger than the hand that writes them.’ The story of this silent movie star became a love story between him and this young extra. From version to version, Peppy Miller gradually became more and more important.”

Bejo found much to admire in the fledgling actress. “I liked Peppy right away; she stimulated me. When you do improv you’re taught never to say no and take everything that is offered to you, accept it and play with it. Peppy applies this rule throughout her life; she has fun with everything. Stars often have that quality.

They’re not where they are by coincidence: they have enormous self-confidence, they grab what’s available to them, that’s how they climb the ladder and become stars. But Peppy’s not in any way calculating.  She’s a good person, and doesn’t forget where she came from. And she doesn’t forget George.”

The casting process moved to Los Angeles, where Hazanavicius worked with casting agent Heidi Levitt. John Goodman was approached to play Al Zimmer, the studio chief who walks the line between coddling and corralling his contract stars. The actor liked the script, and a meeting was arranged at his agent’s office. Remembers Hazanavicius, “We talked for a few minutes. Then John said, ‘Okay. I’ve never seen a movie like this and I want to be part of it.’ I said, ‘Okay’ and that was it!”

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Having never written a silent film, ‘The Artist’ creator Michel Hazanavicius immersed himself in the genre to gain an understanding of what did and didn’t work. “At the very beginning I watched movies from all over: America, Germany, Russia, France, England. I observed that as soon as the story starts to grow unclear — too many new developments, too many characters — you lose interest,” he says.

“Very soon I focused on the last four or five years of the silent era, especially in America. I think those were the best movies, and also the ones that aged best. The way the stories are told in American silents isn’t so different than the way the stories are told today.” Along with watching films, the director read cinema histories as well as memoirs and biographies of silent era directors, producers and stars. He looked at photographs and other archival materials and listened to music of the period.

He drew inspiration from the work and lives of such stars as Douglas Fairbanks, Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson, John Gilbert and Greta Garbo. “Research is very important,” he comments. “Not so much to be strictly realistic — that’s not what I’m after — but as a springboard for the imagination. The research fed the story, the context, the characters.  The more research you have done, the more you can play with it all.”

Unfolding during a four year period, 1927-1931, ‘The Artist’ introduces its titular character, the action-adventure hero George Valentin, at the peak of his popularity. Fans flock to see George in films tailored to his dashing persona: exotic tales in which he triumphs over evil with wit, panache and the aid of his devoted sidekick, a Jack Russell terrier with impeccable timing.

When sound arrives, George resists the upstart format (as did Chaplin, among others). He stakes his career on his belief that the talkies will remain a novelty, and sets out to prove that he can succeed on his own terms, as an artist of the silent cinema.

Though ‘The Artist’ is set over 80 years ago, George’s circumstances, and the powerful emotions attached, are as current as ever. Says Hazanavicius, “To me, it’s interesting to think of George’s story in terms of a human being in a transition period. The world is always moving, and you might be looking in another direction.

One day, the world says to you, ‘you’re part of the past.’ It can happen in your own office, in your factory, in your relationship. It’s a feeling any person can understand.” But before he begins his descent from Hollywood heights, George meets the energetic young actress Peppy Miller.

The famous actor and the effervescent unknown are irresistibly drawn to one another, but are kept apart by chance and circumstance, unable to give voice to their feelings. It’s a classic scenario of star-crossed romance, intense yet chaste. “It’s an old-fashioned vision of love, very pure, and it also holds with the form of silent movies,” comments Hazanavicius. “Some of the masterpieces of silent cinema are simple love stories. They inspired me to take the film in a direction that was lighter, more optimistic and joyful.”

By the time he finished writing, Hazanavicius felt confident that he had constructed a story that could sustain a silent format. Hazanavicius believed ‘The Artist’ — steeped in Hollywood cinema history, sensibility and technique — had to be shot in Los Angeles.

And a Franco-American production in Los Angeles would mirror yet another aspect of silent movie history: many of the most renowned directors of the American silent cinema were native Europeans, including Charlie Chaplin, Erich von Stroheim, F.W. Murnau, Ernst Lubitsch, Josef von Sternberg and Victor Sjöström.

To Hazanavicius’s delight, Langmann agreed the film belonged in Los Angeles. “If Thomas had said to me, ‘Okay, we’ll make the film but we’ll shoot it in the Ukraine!, I would have gone to the Ukraine to shoot it,” the filmmaker remarks. “Thomas did everything within his power to allow us to shoot ‘The Artist’ where it should be shot, where the action took place.”

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The impressive French-American silent movie ‘The Artist’ by director Michel Hazanavicius, will be remembered not just for its unusual way of interpreting the beauty and wistful grace of the end of one of Hollywood’s most precious eras, the silent films, but also for its achievement at this years Oscars.

The French star Jean Dujardin was ecstatic as he accepted the Oscar for Best Leading Actor, making him the first French actor to receive the honor. Michel Hazanavicius can celebrate his own success in winning the price for Best Director and the overall film, which despite its critical acclaim has done meagerly at the box office, will receive a deserved boost by the prestigious Best Picture award.

Of other notable wins were Best Original Score which underlines the tremendous work and power that The Artist held in conveying the drama, comedy and intensity of its story without spoken lines. Ludovic Bource was interviewed by the Oscar Press corps and its translators shortly after winning the golden statue for his work.

A. It’s unbelievable for me.

Q. [Speaks in French]

A. So he said he’s he’s incredibly impressed to be here and the first prize he ever got for The Artist was at the EFA awards, the European Film Awards, and the statue is a woman and so his little boy said, Papa, you need to bring me the man, the Oscar, so that they can kiss each other.

Q. [Speaks in French] It was very moving tonight, your speech, because you said at one point, Well, actually I would like that people accept me here in Hollywood. Why, because I have so much love to give. Can you please explain to us, because I know that actually to make it here in Hollywood you have to love and even be in love.

A. All of the work I did on The Artist was a declaration of love to American culture, American cinema.

Q. [Unintelligible] is a tribute to the American composer. [Unintelligible] the next step for you is in Hollywood.

A. If Hollywood accepts me, it’s my dream to be here. So yes, I would love to give you my love and be part of Hollywood now.

Q. Hi. This is a silent film, and I just wondered for you, the music plays so much a part of this. Do you feel like this was a character in the film?

A. Yes. Music is it’s a character in the movie and it’s a unique language and I’m so honored to have been able to have made this movie thanks to Michel Hazanavicius.

Image Courtesy of  Richard Harbaugh / ©A.M.P.A.S.

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Tonight at the newly renamed Hollywood and Highland Center, the Academy Awards will be delivering Oscar magic all night under the auspice of returning host Billy Crystal. The silent triumph of ‘The Artist’ is leading the buzz at the moment but until the cameras turn on inside the dazzling auditorium, the bets are on.

This year marks the 84th time around that Hollywood’s finest gather to celebrate the last years cinematic triumphs, but there has rarely been so much debacle before the big night; after years of faithful audiences, the ABC network reports a drop in recent years from a steady 60 to 70 million viewers to a mere 40 millions. In comparison, the Super Bowl finals could draw more than 110 millions viewers.

Another issue was the departure of producer Brett Ratner who left along with this years initially announced host, Eddie Murphy – not to mention the sudden and unfortunate bankruptcy of Eastman Kodak which brought on a complicated naming and promotional issue and jeopardizes the Academy’s continuous use of the facility for the Oscar show.

The biggest problem, though, is the dwindling number of viewers. Why have movie lovers forsaken the prestigious ceremony?

Some believe the major issue is that the general audience never really watches the movies that end up being celebrated by the contemporary Academy. In the last decade, the selected nominees have increasingly been influenced by art, emotions and indie productions; only few box office hits seem to cut it when it comes to Best Picture or leading performances – James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ being a notable exception.

The movies at this years Oscars are haunted by slow performances at the box office – The Artist, despite formidable reviews, only managed to make 28 million dollars, in comparison with ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2’ which raked a whopping 1,3 billion dollars last year.

As the general public see less and less of the nominated movies, their interest and excitement in the competition at the Oscar slumps. There is no fun in watching the celebration of movies you never heard of.

To compensate for the low level of recognizable names on the nomination list, the Academy have attempted to boost the entertainment quality of the event itself, including younger hosts, more comedy and more glamour. Last year’s double hosting by the sweet Anne Hathaway and spaced out James Franco was one of the low points of these initiatives so the return of Billy Crystal in a welcomed treat for Oscar buffs. Tonight makes his ninth time as Oscar host and the 63 year-old holds a great record as a terrific entertainer.

Despite the Academy’s struggle to get things in place for the night of the golden statue, millions of people worldwide will tune in tonight for the exquisite pleasure of watching the finest of Hollywood, gather in a media production extravaganza, including an ambitious slated performance of Cirque du Soleil in a one-time-only event by a rumored more than 50 performers, their biggest troupe ever.

Billy, we’re ready for you!

Image Courtesy of  Bob D’Amico / ABC

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