Oscars Analysis: How has The Artist Triumphed so Utterly?

A few months ago, The Artist's success was unimaginable. How has it come to pass?

It has become easy over the last few months, as The Artist has been celebrated by every single awards ceremony in existence, to forget quite how extraordinary its success is. To remind us of that fact, let’s put it in plain terms. A black and white,almost completely silent film has just won the Oscar for Best Picture. Had someone predicted this 12 months ago, they would have been laughed out of Tinseltown.

The Artist Takes the Oscars

Silent Movie Wins Five Awards; Hugo also wins five

As widely expected, it was The Artist’s night at The 84^th Annual Academy Awards, as it won five awards, including Best Picture, Director, and Actor for Jean Dujardin. However, the Academy also showed its affection for Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, which also won five awards in technical categories. Meryl Streep, Christopher Plummer and Octavia Spencer won the other acting awards.

The Best Picture Nominees Ranked and Reviewed

The Best Picture Nominees Reviewed Ahead of Tonight's Oscars

9. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close – Truly one of the worst Best Picture nominees ever, Stephen Daldry’s cold and irritating post-9/11 dirge is boring, manipulative and features the most annoying child character for quite some time. To get on this year’s list, 5% of Academy voters had to put the film as their first choice. How they could do that for this tripe and not for films such as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or We Need to Talk About Kevin is just beyond the comprehension of the sane and rational.

The Artist Triumphs at the BAFTAs

Seven awards for The Artist confirms that it is unstoppable in its march towards Oscar success

The Artist swept all before it at Sunday night’s BAFTAs, winning seven awards, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy won for Best British Film and Best Adapted Screenplay, tying with Hugo, The Iron Lady and Senna on two awards each.

The BAFTAs had threatened to buck the trend of the French silent-movie winning all of the major awards it was up for, with the adaptation of Le Carré’s spy thriller looking like a strong contender as the flag-bearer for British film this year. However, BAFTA demonstrated its admiration of The Artist by awarding it the most awards of the night by far, including a surprise win for Jean Dujardin in the Best Actor category, an award which Tinker Tailor’s Gary Oldman had been expected to win.

BAFTA Preview: Best Film and Full List of Predictions

In a battle of two much-admired films, the sheer amount of love for The Artist will carry the day

The Oscars have a list of nine films for Best Picture. BAFTA has five films in its list for Best Film. BAFTA’s list is better, for BAFTA includes The Artist and The Descendants, two of the finest films you’d wish to see, the worthy The Help, which was surprisingly nominated ahead of Hugo, and it includes Drive, one of the most brilliantly well-executed films of the year, and, of course, it is the only major awards body to have given a nomination to the best film of 2011, namely Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

So, who will win?

BAFTA Preview: Best Director

The under-appreciated get a chance, but can they stop The Artist and Michel Hazanavicius?

The nominees for Best Director are a fine selection indeed. BAFTA has recognised the cinephile work of both Michel Hazanavicius in The Artist and Martin Scorsese for Hugo, as had everyone else, but they have also picked three of the very best and under-appreciated directors of last year. We have the Best Director from Cannes, Nicolas Winding-Refn for Drive, the meticulous Swede Tomas Alfredson for the masterful Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and Lynne Ramsay for We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Anyone of these would be very worthy winners, and the competition is very close to call. BAFTA does not pick its Best Director winners lightly. They often go for exceptional filmmakers whose work is not getting rewarded widely. In recent years, Paul Greengrass won for United 93, Peter Weir won for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, and Mike Leigh won for Vera Drake.

Can anything stop The Artist?

Michel Hazanvicius continues The Artist's winning streak at DGAs

The Artist’s seemingly inexorable march toward numerous Oscar gongs continued last night when Michel Hazanavicius was named as “Director of the Year” by the Director’s Guild of America, a reliable indicator of Oscar success. This goes with its victory at the Producer’s Guild Awards last week, all of which seem to indicate that the French, black-and-white silent film is going to do extremely well when the Academy hands out its awards in just under a month.

Comment: Oscar Nominations

Oscar gets all nostalgic and plucky Brits do well in a surprising list of nominations

I really must apologise to the neighbours, because when Gary Oldman’s name was read out as an Oscar nominee for Best Actor I gave an almighty cry of “Yes!”. After weeks of being snubbed by awards bodies in the States, though the BAFTAs were far more appreciative of one of the finest films of last year, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy finally got some recognition. Okay: three nominations is not enough in my estimation, but it is more than I was hoping for.

Hugo and The Artist Lead the Charge at the Oscars

There's also good news for Meryl Streep and Gary Oldman

For once, there were surprises and shocks when the Oscar nominations were announced at lunchtime on Tuesday. There were many hoots and gasps, but there were also many nominations which came as expected, with The Artist doing well, and Meryl Streep collecting her 17 Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.

The Artist, of course, is the big front-runner of the awards season, and it has collected a bevy of nominations. It has received 10 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Jean Dujardin, Best Supporting Actress for Berenice Bejo and Original Screenplay. This is triumphant for such an unconventional film, demonstrating a great deal of affection for Michel Hazanavicius’ black and white silent film. It remains the big favourite for Best Picture.

Is 3D dying or has it merely stumbled?

The future for 3D looks pretty bleak, but are things as bad as they seem?


Two weeks ago, I was able to ask Mark Kermode a question: how long do you think 3D has to last? “Less than 12 months”, he replied. I was staggered by his confidence. After all, there are two big films coming up this year which will make money in 3D, namely the Spielberg-Jackson production of Tintin and Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. Then, in 15 months’ time, we have The Hobbit in 3D. There seems to be plenty of opportunity for the medium to fire itself back to life.

Have we hit the 3D tipping point?

The anti-3D lobby is growing very strong indeed, and there is a sense that the crucial moment has come. The release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 in 3D has brought about something new: audiences have had a viewing experience where they have really liked the film but absolutely hated the 3D.

Trailerwatch: Taking a look at new trailers, so you don't have to

Today: The Iron Lady, The Adventures of Tintin & Hugo