I love movies.
I love them because they're transportive, because they're sentimental, because they're exciting. I love them because they tell you so much about the people who make them. I love them because I can watch the same one, over and over, and continue to get something back from it. I love how they move me. I love everything about them.
And apparently so does Martin Scorsese.
Hugo is a giant love letter to cinema. Affection saturates every frame. Set against the lush backdrop of Paris in winter, there is not a moment of this film that fails to remind you how powerful movies are and how deeply they resonate with people. It starts as a mystery: Hugo, an achingly young boy who lives orphaned in the walls of a train station taking care of the clocks, is trying to fix a small automaton, a project originally started by his father. Fixing the automaton is how Hugo stays connected to his father; he is convinced that, once functional, the writing machine will reveal a hidden message from the deceased Monsieur Cabret.
To fix the machine Hugo steals bits of clockwork from George (Ben Kingsley), who owns a toy shop in the train station; his god-daughter is Isabelle, enchanted with the idea of the great adventure and loquacious from devouring every book she can get her hands on. She meets Hugo when he's caught by George and has his notebook (full of mechanical sketches done by his father) taken from him by the older man. Working together, Hugo and Isabelle begin to discover that the automaton is more than it seems and may help George re-discover his purpose in life. (I won't tell you who George is, if you're trying to preserve the surprise, although IMDB has his full name listed. If you're interested in the real person Kingsley is portraying, click here.)
I'm not the first person to use the phrase "love letter to film" in description of Hugo, and I use it now because it's the only phrase I can think of that encompasses the beauty and poetry of this film. Scorsese gives us a symphony of light and clockwork, punctuated by gusts of steam from passing trains and the snowy streets of Paris. Visually this movie is stunning: the train station is all warm, golden light, framed by the faces of clocks and ornate iron grates. Paris is blue and white winter, with the lights of the city (and especially the Eiffel Tower) picked out like stars in the sweeping shots of the city.
Asa Butterfield as our titular hero has huge blue eyes that break your heart in nearly every shot. He and Chloe Moretz (as Isabelle) are the focus of the film, and they do an excellent job of the heavy lifting. I'm always ready to simply accept the job that child actors do in films, and when a young person comes along who can actually carry his scenes next to a veteran like Kingsley I'm properly impressed; both Butterfield and Moretz pull their roles off beautifully. Moretz should start winning awards any day now, if she continues doing this well.
It was interesting to me that Scorsese chose to do a movie that's essentially an ode to silent film and the history of film in 3D; I understand now, I think. We get scenes from some of the earliest films made, and to think about how far the film industry has progressed since those first efforts is really breathtaking. About 98% of the time I think 3D is poorly done and completely unnecessary; here, it's beautiful and thought-provoking. The early filmmakers were inventing the wheel that Hollywood keeps trying to re-imagine, and every once in a while a film comes along that shows you not only a new way to build that whee, but a whole new purpose for it you could never have imagined. Hugo is this kind of movie.
Go see it. You won't be disappointed, I promise.
I love them because they're transportive, because they're sentimental, because they're exciting. I love them because they tell you so much about the people who make them. I love them because I can watch the same one, over and over, and continue to get something back from it. I love how they move me. I love everything about them.
And apparently so does Martin Scorsese.
Hugo is a giant love letter to cinema. Affection saturates every frame. Set against the lush backdrop of Paris in winter, there is not a moment of this film that fails to remind you how powerful movies are and how deeply they resonate with people. It starts as a mystery: Hugo, an achingly young boy who lives orphaned in the walls of a train station taking care of the clocks, is trying to fix a small automaton, a project originally started by his father. Fixing the automaton is how Hugo stays connected to his father; he is convinced that, once functional, the writing machine will reveal a hidden message from the deceased Monsieur Cabret.
To fix the machine Hugo steals bits of clockwork from George (Ben Kingsley), who owns a toy shop in the train station; his god-daughter is Isabelle, enchanted with the idea of the great adventure and loquacious from devouring every book she can get her hands on. She meets Hugo when he's caught by George and has his notebook (full of mechanical sketches done by his father) taken from him by the older man. Working together, Hugo and Isabelle begin to discover that the automaton is more than it seems and may help George re-discover his purpose in life. (I won't tell you who George is, if you're trying to preserve the surprise, although IMDB has his full name listed. If you're interested in the real person Kingsley is portraying, click here.)
I'm not the first person to use the phrase "love letter to film" in description of Hugo, and I use it now because it's the only phrase I can think of that encompasses the beauty and poetry of this film. Scorsese gives us a symphony of light and clockwork, punctuated by gusts of steam from passing trains and the snowy streets of Paris. Visually this movie is stunning: the train station is all warm, golden light, framed by the faces of clocks and ornate iron grates. Paris is blue and white winter, with the lights of the city (and especially the Eiffel Tower) picked out like stars in the sweeping shots of the city.
Asa Butterfield as our titular hero has huge blue eyes that break your heart in nearly every shot. He and Chloe Moretz (as Isabelle) are the focus of the film, and they do an excellent job of the heavy lifting. I'm always ready to simply accept the job that child actors do in films, and when a young person comes along who can actually carry his scenes next to a veteran like Kingsley I'm properly impressed; both Butterfield and Moretz pull their roles off beautifully. Moretz should start winning awards any day now, if she continues doing this well.
It was interesting to me that Scorsese chose to do a movie that's essentially an ode to silent film and the history of film in 3D; I understand now, I think. We get scenes from some of the earliest films made, and to think about how far the film industry has progressed since those first efforts is really breathtaking. About 98% of the time I think 3D is poorly done and completely unnecessary; here, it's beautiful and thought-provoking. The early filmmakers were inventing the wheel that Hollywood keeps trying to re-imagine, and every once in a while a film comes along that shows you not only a new way to build that whee, but a whole new purpose for it you could never have imagined. Hugo is this kind of movie.
Go see it. You won't be disappointed, I promise.
