Ellington

The poster for "The Artist" reveals a raffishly handsome gentleman gazing into the soft, wide eyes of a beautiful ingénue. They are glamorous in the high-contrast, black-and-white photo. He's in a tux, and she's in a shiny flapper dress with only the high contours of their faces lit. It reminds me of a roaring '20s version of the 1939 "Gone With The Wind" movie poster, where Rhett and Scarlett are breathy inches from each other. "The Artist" poster, a tad more highbrow than the bodice ripper from GWTW, promises a sensational love potion filled with vintage charm.

Michel Hazanavicius' film, however, is bigger, bolder and more audacious than a mere romantic fling. Like "Gone With the Wind," "The Artist" comments on the passing of an era and the way change affects people, their relationships and lifestyles.

Set during Hollywood's shift from silent pictures to talkies, "The Artist," which was written, directed and edited by Hazanavicius, explores the self-destruction and demise of a movie star who fails to adapt to the new motion-picture art form of sound. George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is the artist. Valentin (without the "o") reigns as the No. 1 box-office draw of 1927 and stars in vehicles with catchy titles, such as "A German Affair" and "The Russian Affair." He mugs for the camera, has a ubiquitous wonder dog as his capable assistant (the scene-stealing Uggie) and is always the triumphant hero.

Off screen, Valentin is not much different. He's elegant and flirtatious. He loves to amuse audiences and reporters with soft-shoe dance numbers and tricks he's worked out with his pooch. Valentin's smile is positively magnetic, and you can immediately understand why the women swoon over him. There is no obstacle to Valentin's happiness, and if he were to speak, you can imagine him declaring that he is on top of the world.

Sadly for Valentin, we all know that what goes up must come down. Valentin's idyllic life flip-flops and takes a nose dive after he meets Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), a waif of a movie wannabe who accidentally drops her dainty purse and ends up kissing Valentin in front of a mob of paparazzi. "Who's That Girl?" Ask the morning headlines. Doris (Penelope Ann Miller), Valentin's wife, wants to know what's going on between the lines. Fan or paramour? Valentin's chauffer Clifton (James Cromwell), ever loyal, knows to keep out of the mess.

The action skitters back and forth between Peppy getting cast as an extra in Valentin's next picture, to Valentin flirt dancing with her on the set, to the studio boss (John Goodman) firing Peppy for causing a news scandal, to Valentin requesting the boss to allow her to stay on. Just when you think the relationships are going to stabilize into something predicable, the characters wiggle free. And just when you think the movie is following a conventional path, Hazanavicius shifts the action and sparkles the screen with dancing girls, nightmares, and fire and brimstone scenes.

In this silent film about a silent-film star, the actors convey a wealth of emotions from facial expressions, body language and gestures. It has the feeling of classical repertoire with physicality leading character development. Goodman is perfect as the movie mogul with a soft spot for the stars of Kinograph Studios. Bejo's Peppy is enchanting. She has moxie and a fresh face with luminescent dark eyes. Dujardin, who won the SAG award for Best Actor beating out favorite George Clooney, is brilliant. His mercurial face moves in and out of expressions seamlessly. He's mesmerizing on the screen. Dujardin has what you can't get if you don't have it—the right blend of nuance, wit and playfulness.

Hazanavicius uses sound and music to fuse the gorgeous black-and-white vision created by cinematographer Guillaume Schiffman into a modern masterpiece. When Valentin does hear what's going on around him, it's a Darwinian nightmare where only the loudest and most adaptable survive.

"The Artist" is simply marvelous. It's a cosmic vaudevillian epic, and one of the most pleasing films of the year, if not the decade.