SOURCE 2

The Artist is a 2011 French romance film directed by Michel Hazanavicius, starring Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo. The story takes place in Hollywood between 1927 and 1932 and focuses on a declining male film star and a rising actress, as silent cinema grows out of fashion and is replaced by the talkies. The film is itself a silent film and in black-and-white. Dujardin won the Best Actor Award at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where the film premiered.

Filmmakers often attempt to pay homage to filmmaking techniques of a bygone era. Frequent and recent attempts include stabs at grind house and blaxploitation cinema, but those films come with a built-in genre audience which makes them seem like less riskier efforts than what writer/director Michel Hazanavicius (OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies) has attempted to pull off.