Major Differences Between The Artist And Vertigo

The major differences between The Artist and Vertigo stem primarily from their more immediately manifest differences with The Artist a silent and black-and-white film, while Vertigo utilizes color and sound to complement the actions of the actors. While The Artist takes on the style of a late silent era film, Vertigo is more characteristic of the early new wave films. Due to its silent nature, The Artist necessarily mandates longer intervals between cuts and features more dramatic and emphasized acting, which already contributes to a stylistic difference between the two films. This era difference also reveals differences between the two films in their overall plot-lines and in how they end, as new wave films typically follow less generic plot-lines …show more content…
The Artist is a black and white and mostly silent film, drawing from the style of the late silent era, while Vertigo is in color and has sound, and having many characteristics from the new wave era of films. In terms of visual style, The Artist features longer intervals between cuts and more dramatic and emphasized acting to help the audience better understand what is happening, as a throwback to mimicking the style of the late silent era. On the other hand, Vertigo features shorter intervals between cuts to provide a greater sense of action and suspense to scenes, such as the opening scene. The plotlines of the two movies are also quite different. The Artist portrays life from the perspective of affluent Hollywood actors, while Vertigo follows an ordinary, humanly-flawed detective as he goes about fulfilling the requests of his friend. While the films may proceed somewhat differently through the thick of their plots, they both end on much the same note as they started, respectively. Although George Valentin does fall from grace in The Artist, he ultimately makes his comeback with Peppy Miller’s aid, and the film ends on a much the same cheerful note as it started. Similarly, Vertigo begins with a cliffhanger action sequence with the night-time rooftop chase scene and with the policeman falling of the roof, and also ends on a similar suspense filled cliffhanger, this time with Judy Barton having fallen off the belltower. With regards to their endings, Vertigo deviates more from The Artist plot wise than normally otherwise, as it is characterized by innovative new wave era plot-lines that generally close off ambiguously and inconclusively, whereas the ending of The Artist is more