I have two…no, three bones to pick with Melena Ryzik‘s 2.23 Carpetbagger post, an easygoing, tra-la-la thing called “Tap, Tap, Tapping on Oscar’s Door.”
One is that title. If there’s anything that Harvey Weinstein‘s p.r. machine hasn’t been doing on behalf of The Artist, it’s tapping or tap-dancing. The Artist campaign hasn’t been a dance — it’s been a Third Army blitzkrieg. And if she’s talking about tapping on a door (“hello?…may we come in and collect our Oscars?”), the Weinsteins haven’t been doing that either. Nor have they been knocking or rapping or pounding on that door. The best analogy I can think of is that the Weinsteiners came along with some ace carpenters and removed the door jam and unscrewed the hinges and walked right in and did their usual-usual, which is winning Oscars by hook or crook. Which is fine. I’m only saying that winners never knock on doors or wait in lines. Nor do they never talk about their “best.”
Two, Ryzik says The Artist “has had awards buzz since its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May.” Okay, there was a bit back then. It began more earnestly in little trickles at the start of the season (Telluride/Toronto) and didn’t build up steam in late October or November, even. Things didn’t kick in big-time until the New York Film Critics Circle gave it their Best Film prize — that, for people like me, was the decisive dagger thrust to the groin. But Cannes awards buzz was, in my view, negligible. I was at that first Grand Lumiere screening and the reactions I read and heard were along the lines of “splendid! charming! a delightful style experiment with heart! how cool to watch a silent film again!” and so on. (I myself called it “a very well-done curio…a highly diverting, sometimes stirring thing.”) But nobody mentioned Best Picture to me. If anyone had been glib or shallow enough to suggest such a scenario, the response would have been “sure, it’s very well-done and all, and I suppose it’s possible that with a weak field next fall it might winnow its way in as a Best Picture contender, depending on the breaks, but c’mon…it’s a cut-and-paste of A Star Is Born meets Singin’ in the Rain, and it clearly doesn’t have the internals to propel it into serious Best Picture conversation.” (My review also stated that it’s “not quite a full-bodied motion picture with its own voice and voltage — a film that stands on its own.”)
Three, Ryzik says that The Artist “would be the first (nearly) silent film to win an Oscar in more than 80 years.” It is also, nearly, the first mainstream silent feature to have been made in 80 years….if you toss Mel Brooks‘ in-and-out, all-but-forgotten Silent Movie into the dumpster.
I do think it’s commendable that the Weinsteiners have brought The Artist to nearly $30 million domestic, and that they might jack it up to $40 million or beyond before it’s over.
