PG, 126 min.
Director: Martin Scorsese
Writers: John Logan, Brian
Selznick (book “The Invention of Hugo Cabret”)
Starring: Asa Butterfield,
Ben Kingsley, Chloë Grace Moretz, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helen McCrory, Emily
Mortimer, Christopher Lee, Frances de la Tour, Richard Griffiths, Michael
Stuhlbarg, Ray Winstone, Jude Law
This movie is a cineaste’s
dream! I knew that upon my initial screening in theaters, but seeing it a
second time unlocks even more secrets from its meticulous homage to everything
cinema.
What I find most pleasurable
about this film as a film buff is the way Martin Scorsese is able to work in
every form of film making imaginable. You’ll find the more rudimentary
techniques highlighted early on in the film. Probably the most primitive movie
making technique is found when Georges first takes the notebook from Hugo. It
is a technique that all children learn. In the notebook, which was originally
written by Georges, Hugo has drawn pictures in the lower right page corners.
When you flip through them backwards it gives the illusion of an animated
being. I remember drawing little flipbooks with stick figures as a kid.
A little later Georges tests
Hugo’s clockwork skills by having him assemble a broken windup toy. When he
tests the toy, it would’ve been just as easy for Scorsese to use a real windup
toy prop to show Hugo’s success. He also could’ve use CGI animation if he
couldn’t find a practical prop that did what he wanted it to. Instead Scorsese
employs stop motion animation to show the windup toy performing its tricks.
Later in the film, we see a
train crash that has been filmed with miniatures. He uses overlays and iris
fades. All these techniques are obsolete in this day and age of digital film
technologies, but Scorsese employs them as part of his ode to cinema and we can
feel his joy of cinema as a result.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment