2012's Best Picture Winner Broke A 51-Year Streak - Now It's Already A Forgotten Film

A lot of people think that winning an Oscar for Best Picture ensures that a movie will forever be enshrined as a classic, but The Artist proves that this isn’t always the case. Best Picture winners aren’t always the most popular movies, at least in terms of financial success and the number of people that have seen them. For every Oppenheimer and Gladiator, there are dozens of movies which never reach the same level of popularity. However, it’s still unusual for an Oscar winner to be almost completely forgotten about less than 20 years after its triumph, especially if it makes history.

Looking at the history of Best Picture winners is a quick way to track the progression of some of Hollywood’s big trends and the Academy’s preferences. This process also highlights the movies which stand out from the crowd, though, and it’s these that offer the most insight. In some cases, they’re movies so singular and exceptional that they win against all odds, but more often than not, it’s their quirks which make them likely awards-season contenders, even if they have less of an impact on the public. Oscar voters have their own ideals, and these don’t always line up with the majority of people.

The Artist Won Five Oscars, But Nobody Talks About It Anymore

The Black-And-White Movie Also Made History

The Artist was nominated for ten Oscars in total, winning five including Best Picture. This saw it break a number of long-standing records, as it became the first black-and-white movie to win Best Picture since 1960’s The Apartment, and the first predominantly silent movie to win since Wings won at the very first Oscars in 1929. The Artist takes place during the late 1920s and early 1930s, as Hollywood was phasing out silent films in favor of “talkies“. It goes to great lengths to recreate the style of the times, with period-appropriate music, dialogue cards and some intelligent visual storytelling.

The Artist‘s Best Picture win looks like an anomaly, since it’s completely different to any other big winner of the last 60 or so years. However, it actually fits within one of the most interesting Hollywood trends of recent years. There have been several outstanding black-and-white movies in the 21st century, as the technique is now making a comeback as an artistic choice after decades of being viewed as redundant. Alongside movies like Roma and The Lighthouse, some modern movies have used black-and-white as a tool to highlight certain scenes, like Oppenheimer and The French Dispatch.

The Artist is worth more than its eye-catching gimmick. While it’s fun to see old filmmaking techniques being used once again, complete with physical comedy, a talented dog and a lavish musical number, The Artist also tells an interesting story. There’s a layer of artifice that keeps the audience at arm’s length, but the narrative still packs an emotional punch. The jokes are genuinely funny and the drama can be genuinely moving, proving that the silent, black-and-white approach isn’t too much of a hindrance. In fact, The Artist innovates within this framework, adding an intelligent modern twist right at the end.

Why The Artist Fell Out Of Fashion

The Artist Was Always Going To Be More Popular Within The Movie Industry

The Artist is a movie about the art of making movies, so it naturally appeals to true cinephiles. This also makes it a strong Oscar contender, since the Academy has a history of recognizing movies about the industry. As a filmmaking curio and a bold narrative exercise, The Artist is a roaring success, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that the public will appreciate it as much as other modern movies. It seems to have had its time in the spotlight, but the novelty can wear off pretty quickly, which helps explain why some people might never have even heard of The Artist today.

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The Artist also benefited from competing in a relatively lean year at the Oscars. Although Moneyball, Midnight in Paris and The Help were all highly rated, The Artist would have faced stiffer competition in other years. It’s impossible to know if it would have beaten Argo a year later, or 12 Years a Slave the year after that. Skeptics might argue that its Oscar win was powered by luck, and this is why other movies from the same era have managed to maintain their relevance for longer. Regardless, it’s fair to say that The Artist offers something original, and it’s one that movie lovers shouldn’t miss.