The Artist

I'm not greatly surprised to hear that some people who went to see the film "The Artist" asked for their money back when they found that it was a silent movie. Not because it's a poor film but that it was silent. They don't make silent films any more. When you go to the cinema these days you expect to see a "talkie". How is it possible to suspend your disbelief in a silent film? You cannot. Suspending one's disbelief comes with seeing something in a familiar form - watching "Coronation Street" for example; you get to know the characters and believe, in a strange sort of way, that they are real people. When an unfamiliar form of a film comes along you do not see it as being real. Thus with "The Artist": film-makers don't make silent films any more so this one becomes attractive (to some people) because it's a gimmick, it's novel. It is not stretching the form of films so that new insights into the art form (if it is an art form) are discovered. No new insights arrive with "The Artist". Nothing new, only novel.
When films were made in the silent era, only silent films were made - obviously. Silent films were the accepted form for films and people "willingly suspended their disbelief" to watch them. "The Artist" is a spoof of silent films as they then were and can't be taken seriously, neither as a work of art or as entertainment, except in the respect that it is a spoof.
It's a very well produced spoof, acted exceedingly well with a plot that is brilliant in its use of both silence and sound. But it's a gimmicky thing; it's also a one-off.
I recall Robert Montgomery making "The Lady in the Lake" in which he played Phillip Marlowe from behind the camera as if the camera was his eyes and ears; you only saw him in a mirror or two. It worked OK but it was, to my knowledge, never repeated. Neither was a sound film with no talk in it made by Ray Milland (acted and directed). All one-offs.
It seems that "The Artist" is going to win many oscars tonight but I don't think it should on artistic merit. I would have picked "Drive"but that's not even nominated.

Boxing

You don't have to be a mindless thug to be a boxer though the recently thugish British versions of the pugilist seem to be not only thugish but mindless as well. Not all boxers act in this unseemly way, brawling during a press conference after the match in the ring has already taken place. Here, for example, is a boxer who is anything but thugish or mindless: Vitali Klitschenko, WBC world heavyweight champion who, I discover, from an article he wrote today in The Times, is also a holder of a PhD and is presently leader of the Ukraine Democratic Alliance. Phew! Needless to say he deplored the "senseless" behaviour of the man he had just beaten in the ring and of the other British boxer, David Haye, and called for heavy penalties from the WBC (World Boxing Council). Maybe they will do something and maybe they won't; maybe they will say they deplore the behaviour but carry on allowing boxers before fights to snarl insults at their opponents and to push their (often ugly) faces up against their opponent's face.
Where is the gentleman boxer of old? The Tommy Farr, the Joe Louis, the Billy Conn, Gentleman Jim Corbett, John L. Sullivan? Nowhere to be seen nowadays. No, somewhere in the past the rot set in and the promoters encouraged bad behaviour because they believed the fans liked it.
I think the rot set in with the aoppearance on the fight scene of Cassuis Clay and his loud mouth. Not that he shouted obscenities at the cameras but he made his boasts almost obscene in their ugly delivery. He, like McEnroe, became experts in the art.... no, not art, there's something uplifting in art (often!).... they became experts in the technique of insult. None has ever apologised because they probably think they were behaving properly.
I recall Alistaire Cook in one of his broadcasts saying how great the indignation was in the USA amoung sports' journalists at McEnroe's dreadful behaviour towards officials at Wimbledom; many thought he should have been "brought home", they were so disgusted.
So, well done Vitali Klitschko, one of the old school, a gentleman of the ring.

Language

Bernard Shaw said that one should know one's own language well before attampting to learn another - or words to that effect. Now there is much press discussion about the dearth of foreign language speakers in this country, that schools are not paying enough attention to teaching foreign languages and that, as a result, people are growing up, getting jobs which require them to go abroad, possibly to sell British goods abroad, without being able to converse with those they are meeting. "But doesn't everyone speak English these days," many people say; "what do I need to be able to speak Spanish to a Spaniard for when he probably speaks good English? Don't they all?" Apparently there is need because over 80% of the world's populace do not speak English. Surpirised me too!
I learnt some French in school and it faired me - not very well.... I could get along sometimes but was obliged to use mime on most occasions: e.g. scrambling action for scrambled eggs (it worked sometimes with the word "oeuf" thrown in with it).
Better than nothing I suppose but I would have thought that a salesman, for example, would need a far greater knowledge of the language he needs than GCSE's. A level surely.
However, the best way to learn a language I have always thought is to go to the country and learn to speak it there over a period of a month or so. Hard going but I have known it work.
I was once on one of those schemes where they were trying to bring together the peoples of Europe after WW2. We lived together and worked together. One of the troubles was that everyone from the continent wanted to speak English; it seemed that they were already able to speak English quite fluently and they wanted to practice on us. But there was one fellow who wouldn't have any of that: he was determined to learn French so he spoke it, what little he knew - and it was quite basic - on every occasion he met up with a French person. You could see the screen coming down over their eyes whenever he tried his stuff out with anyone. I lost touch with him for a month then, when I met him again, he was speaking quite good French. He told me what he had done was learn phrases and one day they all seemed to come together. He was a zoologist so maybe that dioscipline had told him something about the human condition: perseverance maybe of a dung beatle, or stubborness of a donkey, or bullishness of a rhino.
I used to just get along with my nouns and verbs (always in the present tense - "I go to the cinema yesterday") and my mime. Flapping by arms like wings and "Poulet, Garcon, sil vous plait".