|
 At
the New York press conference for the Martin Scorsese-directed, Hugo, a
question about the film’s one hundred twenty seven minute running time
and how it was expected that the children the movie was ostensibly meant
for would sit still for that long. One of the film’s stars, Sacha Baron
Cohen responded by praising Scorsese for making movies for himself, not
for the audience or for focus groups and how admirable that was. I take
his point, but then when one makes a film for oneself that is released
to the public as a children’s picture, that creation is open to the
possibility that no one will enjoy it in the vein intended by the
creator. In the case of the adaptation of the popular children’s
storybook, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, this is particularly risky as
Scorsese has made it less about the adventures of its eponymous
protagonist than a showcase for the director’s own legendary worship of
film.
In the
unseen world above a Parisian railway station, a young boy creeps about
with a single purpose. It is Hugo’s job to make sure the building’s
hanging clocks, so important to the station’s travelers and staff, run
with pinpoint accuracy. This career was left to him by a ne’er-do-well
uncle who was supposed to care for Hugo after his father’s untimely
death. Hugo scuttles about through tunnels and walkways from end to end
of the station like a mouse, watching the comings and going of the
flower seller, the newsvendor and the café owner, while steering clear
of the station inspector. Hugo fears the officer might discover that
the child has been left to fend for himself after his uncle’s
disappearance. Of all the people Hugo observes, there’s none he watches
as closely as the toy seller, whose booth is a treasure trove for the
young boy who carries his dad’s love of clockworks and mechanics. Hugo
has pilfered various gears, cogs and other bits of metal for the project
his dad never had time to complete; the repair of an automaton, a robot
that functions on many of the same principles as the clocks Hugo fixes.
Unfortunately, Hugo has stolen one time too many and the toy shop owner
is cruel in his punishment, stealing something precious from Hugo in
return. Hugo is tenacious in his quest to retrieve the manual that was
hand-drawn by his father and the store owner is besieged by the small
boy who eventually becomes the man’s apprentice. Before long, Hugo,
with help of a new friend; the romantic, would-be adventuress, Isabelle,
is able to finally piece together the writing robot that may carry a
message and a mystery from his deceased father for his orphaned son to
discover.
The
beauty of the heart of Paris is blooms lushly in every scene; the
railway station itself looks majestic and pristine. Scorsese uses the
3D aspect of the film far less for the one of two moments of items
lunging from the screen, employing it instead to add to the richness of
the atmosphere, submerging the viewer into this world he’s created,
custom made for a fairy tale, glittering and full of magic. For the
viewer, the 3D component makes visiting the gorgeous, detailed world of
Hugo like being inside of an opulent snow globe.
Would
that Scorsese had taken as much care to center his tale on the charming
story of the orphaned boy living in the train station. Instead, the
film changes direction midway to become a storybook biography of film
pioneer, director Georges Méliès, and to go on at length about the
sanctity of cinema. I tried to consider the film from the perspective
of a viewer who was perhaps not a particular film buff or unfamiliar
about the French director and wondered if his story, jammed into the
middle of Hugo’s, would bear much interest? I thought even more about
the children who would attend this film to see the story of the
character they loved from Brian Selznick’s original story only to watch
him be relegated to the sidelines as many scenes are spent on the silent
film adventures of Méliès.
I understood that Méliès and the fascination
with early film played a part in the literal Hugo’s story, but the focus
in the book is firmly from Hugo’s perspective and we see everything
through his eyes, including his good intentions to recover the old man’s
dreams to him. The heartwarming prospect of Hugo’s quest to find one
last word from his father or his eventual forging of a family feels rote
and unmoving because it becomes an also-ran compared to what seems to
Scorsese to be the bigger story.
It’s as if the director lost interest
in the lonely, resourceful child after having found the opportunity to
spotlight both Méliès and Scorsese’s own film preservation advocacy too
irresistible not to feature in the movie that could bring him his widest
audience based on the purported family-friendly subject matter. He
certainly bites into these scenes with a cinematic brio that isn’t seen
in the moments with Hugo. Lost with this choice are the truly charming
subplots that take place around the station, including the film’s sole
comic relief of the station inspector. Sacha Baron Cohen injects the
authoritarian orphan catcher, who prizes his Doberman sidekick and law
and order above all things, with the absurdity and freewheeling
slapstick for which Baron Cohen is famous.
The movie is often dour and
melancholy as if the director cannot summon the light touch needed to
evoke true delight in this story and Baron Cohen’s scenes are some of
the funniest in a film where humour and light-heartedness are in
dreadfully small supply. The inspector’s attempts at romance with
flower seller Samantha Morton, looking adorably like a Charlie Chaplin
heroine are awkwardly charming and show a side of the actor we’ve not
seen.
Also wonderful in milliseconds of screen time are Richard
Griffiths and Frances de la Tour, also playing characters negotiating a
prospective railway station romance if only the lady’s protective
dachshund would let the gentleman within arms’ reach of his mistress.
The character of Isabelle is one of the most refreshing females of any
of Scorsese’s films. Chloe Grace Moretz is all coltish energy, poetry
and dreams as the sheltered bookworm only too grateful to have a new,
exciting friend in Hugo. Minimised somewhat from her presence in the
Selznick book, it’s unfortunate that Isabelle basically disappears from
the story altogether once she serves her purpose of providing Hugo with
both the literal and figurative key to the automaton’s message. Any one
of these charming tales could have been embellished upon and added to
the magic of the main story, but like Hugo’s own, they are sidetracked. There is a sequence where Hugo has a nightmare is about nearly being run
over by an incoming train that turns in time to save him, but by going
off its rails, the locomotive crashes through the entire station.
This
is almost an allegory for what happens to this film; in seizing so
heartily upon the Méliès’ biography, film preservation lesson and
emphatic adulation of all things cinema, we lose sight of Hugo almost
entirely. The problem with a now-you-see-him-now-you-don’t protagonist
is it doesn’t help younger audiences with the over two hour running
time, which is a trial for little ones who might be fidgety with lack of
interest.
As such, despite the film’s glorious visuals and wonderful
performances, one must wonder why the choice was made to make a film
adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret if Hugo wasn’t meant to be
the centre of his own film?
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
November 23rd, 2011
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