• The Artist star and Golden Globe-winner Jean Dujardin with scene stealer Jack the terrier.

Memo to 2012: Silence, once again, is golden.

Two recent takes on the silent film genre struck me as an interesting juxtaposition: Golden Globe winner The Artist borrows from this old movie method, and a string quartet resurrects a 1929 documentary. The ensemble performed with film footage at the Capitol Theatre in Clearwater on Jan. 14.

Experiencing each production couldn’t have been more psychologically diverse — one was a classic romantic narrative; the other decidedly avant garde.

Both found common ground by using something from the past to convey thoroughly modern motives in artistic expression.