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Details about how a TV series was commissioned or why it ended up on a particular streamer are normally tedious and superfluous: once a piece of art has been made, it stands alone and our assessment of it needn’t be influenced by industry logistics. It’s impossible not to mention, however, that The Artist, a period comedy by writer/director Aram Rappaport, was shown in the US on The Network.
What is The Network? It is a streaming service set up in 2024 by writer and director Aram Rappaport. Its launch show was Rappaport’s TV debut, The Green Veil. That’s right: Rappaport founded a whole new streaming service, then released his own work on it. There’s more to The Network that is of interest, since it also imports original content but only uploads a couple of new titles per week, in the belief that users will value discernment over catalogue depth. But the point is that The Artist, Rappaport’s second series, has been made without him having to pitch it to a network, or take notes from a network, because he is The Network. It is exactly the sort of show you’d think would be made by a man who has the wherewithal, the funds and the sheer nerve to engineer a situation where he can do what he wants. This is not an insult. It might not be a compliment either. It is what it is, and The Artist is not like much else.
We are in Rhode Island in 1906, at the country pile of “eccentric robber baron” Norman Henry (Mandy Patinkin), who made his small fortune as a diligent middle man in deals for unfashionable commodities. Norman has just died, and in the last episode we’ll be told who killed him. Before that, back we go to relive his final days.
Trading literate barbs with Norman from the other end of a very long dinner table is his wife. Marian (Janet McTeer), who we quickly sense has lost her old ambition, but still has a sharpness of mind that now has nothing to slice. For reasons barely explained, the house’s staff live in a circle of tents on the lawn, to be summoned via an elaborate contraption of bells and long strings: as well as cooks and maids there is a boxing coach, there to help Marian punch away her (possibly sexual) frustration, and a ballerina, who provides entertainment by dancing to Rachmaninov preludes, played by a dipsomaniac in-house pianist. Which prelude shall it be tonight? Swirling her hands above her head, Marian pushes for a naughty C sharp minor, but Norman drops his shoulders and pleads for G sharp minor instead. “I have meetings tomorrow!”
Into this wild menage walk real historical figures, not portrayed strictly according to documented fact but perhaps not wholly inaccurately. Thomas Edison (Hank Azaria) visits to extract investment from Norman in his dodgy new home-cinema gadget, the kinetoscope. Also arriving, having been hired by Norman to paint a portrait of his poodles, is a French, nearly blind artist, played by Danny Huston. He initially isn’t named, but his identity is fairly easy to guess if you have a decent knowledge of art history (indeed, you have enough clues if you’ve read this far). Later on comes celebrated model Evelyn Nesbit (Ever Anderson), reeling from witnessing her millionaire husband murder a famous architect.
With each guest in possession of a swollen ego, an artistic or academic bent and a propensity to drive Norman or Marian round the bend, the couple’s already strained and twisted bond disintegrates, leading to a lot of shouting, a festival of excellent swearing and several slapped faces. The tone, arch anarchy against a backdrop of decaying splendour, might put you in mind of Amadeus or, particularly, The Great: this has a similar pugnacious whimsy, but with cold steel hidden in the folds of its grubby velvet gown. The subtitle of the series, An Allegory of a Prostitute, nods to a developing theme about how, on the arts scene of the early 20th century, anyone who isn’t a man with stolen or inherited wealth is up against it and is likely, at some stage, to snap.
As Rappaport puts his flamboyant vision on the screen without compromise, The Artist can be somewhat exhausting, but he has assembled a dream cast and he knows how to stimulate them. Nobody delivers lines such as “You lack the ferocity to succeed” or “Relax, Marian! He’s not gonna kill ya! He’s just French!” better than Patinkin, while McTeer is even more superb as a raging, scheming tangle of frustration. When Patti LuPone swans in near the end as Marian’s waspish thesp of a sister – “Do you even know what a diaphragm is? Aaaaaaaaaaaah!!! That’s a diaphragm!” – it’s best to just knock back another absinthe and be grateful that, as a singular work of art, The Artist somehow exists.
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