The first few seconds of The Artist contain pretty much everything you’re afraid of in a black-and-white silent movie: melodrama, overacting, nothing seeming remotely real.
The first thing you see is a huge mouth, moving silently, and the titles “I won’t talk. I won’t say a word.” Kind of on-the-nose, right?
But then the camera pulls back, and you realize you’re watching a guy being interrogated in a spy flick — a movie within the movie — at a star-studded 1927 premiere. The camera cuts from the crowded theater to behind the screen, where the actors stand in evening clothes waiting to go out and take a bow. There’s star George Valentin, who was being interrogated on screen, his Jack Russell terrier, and an actress he doesn’t seem to think much of.
As their interaction is intercut with the spy movie, the differences register, and your initial fears slip away. I mean, the folks off screen are all silent and black-and-white, too. But the film is already wrapping you up in a world where silence makes sense.
That world is about to be disrupted for George, both at the movies and in his personal life. He’ll be knocked off stride first by “talking pictures,” which he’s convinced are just a fad, and then by a pretty girl named Peppy. She’s an extra who is cast opposite him for a scene where you watch her youthful glow and hesitant smile catch both him and the camera.