The Artist: An Actor's Movie?

There are movies I consider writers' movies. Adaptation comes to mind. I loved it. Pretty much every writer I know that saw it, loved it. We got it. We got the subtleties and the relationships. We got the anxieties and the fears. Not many of my non-writer friends liked it. They didn't get it.

Shakespeare in Love is another one, but for other reasons. The word play. The wit. I think as writers, we could see what they were doing and appreciate it all the more for its subtlety and cleverness. Clearly, a lot of other people liked that movie, too, but I think writers got more out of it because of our understanding of what the writers had one.

We saw The Artist on Friday night and I was wondering if actors felt the same way about it. I thought it was wonderful for a lot of reasons, but the acting was so fun to watch. I was amazed at how little we really needed the big dialogue screens. We know what they were saying. If not the exact words, then certainly their intention. I was impressed, but I bet another actor would get even more out of it because an actor would understand how John Goodman or Jean Dujardin or Berenice Bujo was using a facial expression or a cocked hip or an arched brow to convey so much information. Then again, it was about acting and actors. I bet an actor would "get it" even more than I did, because an actor would understand more of that internal struggle, like I understood the Charlie Kaufman character in Adaptation.

Regardless, it was a great movie. I'm so glad we saw it on the big screen in the funky theater with the super comfy seats. Did you all see it? What did you think? Do you have any actor friends who have seen it? What did they think?