Yesterday, in anticipation of the Golden Globes, wanting to have seen as many of the contenders as possible, I finally got around to watching Martin Scorcese's "Hugo." The HFPA gave him a Golden Globe for Best Director, and IMHO they probably should have given him the award for Best Drama as well. It's really a masterwork of the cinema art.
In his acceptance speech, Mr. Scorcese talked about the genesis of his film. His at-the-time 12-year-old daughter fell in love with a book called "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," and infected him with a similar love for it, such that when his wife said, "Why don't you make a movie our daughter can see?," he thought of this book. "Hugo" is nothing less than one of the master filmmakers of our time using state-of-the-art cinema techniques to create a homage to the history of cinema itself. I saw this film in 2D, but am going to be the first in line when it comes to my local theater in 3D. James Cameron saw the film and said that it was the best use of 3D he had ever seen, including his own film "Avatar." I can only imagine. The long tracking shot that opens the film left me gasping in 2D; I can only imagine what it was like in 3D. The basic plot revolves around the eponymous Hugo. He, an orphan, lives in the walls and rafters of the Montparnasse train station in Paris. He fixes the clocks and keeps them running, and steals food to live. But he's also working at fixing an automaton that his father left to him. This obsession leads him to a man living a lowly life as the proprietor of a toy repair shop in the station. That man turns out to be George Mélies, one of the geniuses of early cinema, fallen on bad times and embittered at having been rejected by an artform he was one of the first creators of. The thing is, that's what really happened in George Mélies' life. The author of the novel drew upon that story and made up a remarkable fable about how an orphan boy could have been instrumental in bringing him back into the public view. "Hugo" is as impassioned a homage to cinema and all that it is as I have ever seen. Scorcese takes us to the world's first movie studio, built by George Mélies, and described by him as "the place your dreams come from." They're still coming from the same place. If you have any- thing of the film lover in you, you should see this movie. And you can even take the kids.
