First of all, I loved reading Mr. Hazanavicius' script, it was an education and a delight. Working on this scene-by-scene breakdown made me focus on structure, story, character, trusting the director/actor and, believe it or not, dialogue. I'm looking forward to the GITS community's discussion about "The Artist."

I loved reading it too, which surprised me because the idea of a silent film did not appeal to me one bit. More fool me. You picked up on some aspects that I'd have missed, going through the scene by scene breakdown, which was helpful. My impression is that it's a pretty simple story, really well told, and with plenty of emotional impact. I'm looking forward to watching it and wonder how the finished article has ended up different from or as I imagined from the screenplay.

"...it's a pretty simple story, really well told, and with plenty of emotional impact." I love this observation-- simple story with emotional impact; every screenwriter's ultimate goal.

I concur with Traci, MrsJingles: A simple story, well told, strong emotional resonance to it. In fact, going through Traci's scene-by-scene breakdown, I was struck by how dark the story is. We may tend to remember the dancing, the fun of making movies, the dog, but at its core, this movie is about a pair of trajectories: Peppy going up, George going down. It's the latter which where much of the story's darkness lies. Consider The Artist in comparison to Inside Llewyn Davis or Birdman. All three are about men working in the entertainment industry, all of them facing an existential crisis. Birdman and The Artist are quite close, where each Protagonist feels a sense of failure and disconnect. Heck, both guys attempt suicide. In reading the breakdown, I was also struck by some of the symbolism I had missed when watching the movie. For example, I know it's a trope of jungle action movies for someone to get stuck in quicksand, but the fact George's struggles to avoid getting swallowed up is an apt metaphor for his experience in show business at that point. Thanks, Traci, for the breakdown. An excellent job. Look forward to where our discussion takes us this week.