We don’t care if Brad is in Black Label, Clooney is clad in Valentino or if Woody shuffles down the red carpet in Reeboks. The actor we’ll be watching most closely at Sunday’s Oscarfest is a fictional one: George Valentin.
Well, more accurately Jean Dujardin, the actor portraying him in “The Artist.” Concocted from a picture-perfect mix of swash (think Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., as Robin Hood, Zorro or the Black Pirate), smolder (his near-namesake Valentino in anything), and the endearingly silly (think Gene Kelly as Don Lockwood in full “Dueling Cavalier” mode), Dujardin’s performance as the eponymous artist has propelled him from well-known Gallic farceur to sensational international leading man in true Old Hollywood style.
And style, in fact, has more than a little to do with his ascendance. (Take a look at him doing some major smoldering of his own on the cover of this month’s French GQ, suave in «un smoking» by Armani.) While critics point to his fizzy physical comedy, his loving embodiment of stars of a bygone era or that nifty pencil mustache, we think they’re silently barking up the wrong tree.
The buzz in the D.net screening room has more accurately nailed the secret of Dujardin’s (and George’s) screen success: This is a guy who can truly work a set of tails. In fact, we can’t remember any performer since Astaire for whom a full-dress suit has done so much—and vice versa.
By Robert Sacheli
Washington
Friday, February 24th, 2012