Hugo (Martin Scorsese 2011)

Last night on Jon Stewart, Martin Scorsese could not speak, not because he couldn't, because the audience would not let him. To cheers, rather, roars of approval, New York City's favorite film director entered for the interview to thunderous applause. The response nearly overwhelmed Scorsese when the audience leapt to its feet and Stewart had to stop the taping. In the broadcast, there is a sudden "jump cut" to when the interview starts.

When the crowd finally settled down, Scorsese went into a long diatribe on why he made the film "Hugo" as an homage to one of the original filmmakers, George Melies. Based on the 2007 novel by Brian Selznick (yes, he is related to David O. Selznick) entitled, "The invention of Hugo Cabret" was inspired by the real life of George Melies. Having practically invented the art of cinema in France, long before it became popular in America, Melies company lost money until he was forced into bankruptcy. His company and its possessions were sold off to cover his debts. The French army purchased thousands of film reels to melt down the celluloid into boots. Melies, impoverished and practically homeless, ended up selling toys in a French railway station until some members of a French film society spotted him and offered him a place to live. Nearly all of Melies works are lost. Only a handful of his 500 films survive to the present day.

"Hugo" makes it premiere on the day before Thanksgiving, November 23, 2011 and will be presented in 3D because, because according to Marty, "my daughter asked me to." Cinematography by Robert Richardson (Shutter Island , The Aviator, Casino, and others) and score by Howard Shore (Lord of the Rings).

Review to follow after next Wednesday's viewing. Have a great week end. Will revisit this site soon.

Hugo – a film by Martin Scorsese


What may become one of the greatest homage to the art of cinema, the auteur Martin Scorsese has crafted a magical world filled with soulful expressions and precise intricacies. This is a film for the ages.

We hear a young girl’s voice. She tells us of a boy who lives in the clockworks of rail station. She narrates the piece until her voice is dwarfed by the enormity of the visuals thrown up onto the screen like gauntlets before our eyes: sweeping impossible camera moves, huge moving brass gears, dark steamy pipes, and anonymous feet attached to hundreds of black baggy loose trousers that are constantly on the move. These are the perspectives of a child, looking out and up at a world that towers over it. So a young boy, brought here by a terrible chance of fate, finds that his life has become entwined with a series of old steam-driven mechanical clocks inside an enormous train station in the heart of Paris, France.

The Great War has just ended. Its scars still cling to the landscape under repair. Europe rushes to fix what is broken – with its buildings, with its people – and wants to move on. Yet some aspects of society never seem to change: the baker, the flower girl, the gens d’armes walking their beat, the bookseller, and the toy maker. We watch their aging faces through the large looming faces of the stations great clocks. For these are the supportive characters that work in the station’s shops as seen through the eyes of Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield). Having lost his father in a museum fire, his only relative, an alcoholic uncle, forces the boy to maintain the clocks inside the huge train station. However, the even his uncle disappears. So the boy carries on alone in silence, oiling, winding springs, fixing the clocks to keep them running while he steals food to stay alive.

The only thing the eight-year-old possesses of his father’s is a mechanical man, a device called an automaton, shaped like a mannequin whose guts of gears make it move and pen in hand with an unknown mysterious purpose. Yet it is missing an integral part, a key shaped like a heart that will give the mechanism life. The boy’s one desire is to make the mechanical man complete, for he believes that once it begins to write, it will spell out a message from his father. He pursues the white-haired toymaker (Ben Kingsley), for the old man possesses many gears of the type used in the device.

I will not reveal what happens next. I believe it is best not to know. If you read other reviews that go further into the plot, stop, do not read them. They will spoil a great surprise that Scorsese counts on to make his emotional arrow strike home at the heart of the viewer, us. A review should not reveal the key elements of a plot that is meant to unfold and amaze. There are many “ah ha!” moments in this film. I want you to have those.

Based on actual events that took place in France at this time, the original story ties together real events in this fanciful tale spun with vivid imagination, a special salute to the true focus of this film – a filmmaker par excellence. This is Scorsese’s beautiful tribute to the art of cinema, and as I stated at the start, will probably become one of the greatest films of all time in that regard, for it speaks to the purpose of film, what it can illuminate in our imagination and what its potential has always been – a way to express magic and make believe. Scorsese speaks to the child in all of us, and begs the question; do you suspend your belief?

Presented in 3D, I highly recommend this film and will be glad to discuss the plot further once our illustrious members have seen it. No spoilers here.

Thanks for the posts cinemabon. This looks Marvelous.
I read a review here in canada that said Scorsese got bitten by the film bug as a young kid and this film is his way of paying tribute to that.
Melies and Scorsese.
It's like "bread and butter', "rum and coke", "salt and pepper", "gin and tonic", "coffee and cigarettes".

This is one that film buffs can deliciously smell, miles & miles away...
Can't wait to check it out.

If this film is not nominated for Best Picture of the Year, then you may remove "art" from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, for I can think of no effort this year that does not utterly symbolize the very essence of cinema art than this film.

Then you haven't seen The Tree of Life.

It should win Best Picture in my opinion.

I'm not sure the Academy will agree. "The Tree of Life" is a great acting film, but parts of it are very difficult to watch. That may not sit well with some of the voters. While it might be nominated, to me the film in the running is "Hugo."

We may need a new thread on 2012 Oscar predictions.

While 3-D still has a way to go, Hugo under the direction of Scorese has presented a movie that captures the essence and the potentiality of 3-D as a fixture of cinema, ironically by way of using the setting of the beginnings of cinema itself. The use of 3-D in two remarkable scenes (train guard and the vendor) firmly suggests that 3-D has a place in cinema.

cinemabon- you may be right about the Academy voters. They don't seem interested in EXCELLENCE, just what tickles their fancy.
Sometimes they get it and then sometimes....you just go "Wha??"
The Oscars should be objective, not emotional.
Either way you'll never see me gripe about Martin Scorsese winning an award.
He's been overlooked for most of his career and deserves any accolades that come his way.

We'll see if Tree of Life is even nominated.

Both films should stand on their merits. I happen to think that "Hugo" is an excellent film by any standard. However, when it comes to the Academy, it has everything that the film industry likes in a film: history, great emotional story, beautiful photography and music, incredible supporting cast; good moral lesson. While the Academy often puts up controversial films, "Silence of the Lambs" for example, they do love a good story... and this film has a great story that is beautifully told by talented artisans.

Martin Scorsese: HUGO (2011)
Review by Chris Knipp

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BEN KINGSLEY AND ASA BUTTERFIELLD IN HUGO

A boy film historian

Martin Scorsese's Hugo is a serious, lush movie made for children and would-be children from a book (by Brian Selznick) that follows from the director's own long preoccupation with preserving the fragile artifacts of film history. It concerns a studious and mechanically adept French orphan in 1930, an ambitious recluse as he himself may have been as a boy, who discovers that right in the Paris Montparnasse railway station where he himself lives, maintaining its clocks, there is a lost hero of early cinema, Georges Méliès, who made delirious little fantasy and science fiction movies and then was forgotten and wound up running a train station toy shop. In solving the mystery little Hugo finds himself and finds a purpose in life.

Hugo is a celebration of fantasy and an ennobling of a shy child's dreams. It may provide the same kind of pleasure that Powell-Pressberger's Tales of Hoffman gave me as a youth, though the 3D and elaborate CGI of Hugo, yes, and even the location shooting in Paris, for me lack the magic of that earlier film's more artisanal effects, its ballet dancing, and Offenbach's music. More is, as so often, a little less. And in abandoning his sexy and violent earlier style of Taxi Driver and Goodfellas Scorsese has lost much of the raw energy his movies had in his heyday. Hugo is delightful (or what adults think is so for kids), but unlike Scorsese's gutsy best work, it's old-fashioned and blatantly artificial. There's nothing earth-shaking or exciting here. (Made on one fifteenth the budget, The Artist evokes old film more adeptly and touchingly.) The children I saw walking out of the theater were quiet, entranced, perhaps, but not energized. At least Scorsese has produced something lovely and nice for the holiday season, not a waxworks monstrosity like Eastwood's J. Edgar (whatever the latter's Oscar possibilities for its ambitious star). Besides numerous valuable documentaries, Scorsese has had many missteps since his glory days. This isn't one of them.

Hugo is not without its passé conventions. Everybody in the 1930 Paris train station (a huge, elaborate indoor set) speaks English with a posh British accent, including the excellent (and suitably pallid) Asa Butterfield, as the boy, and the superb Ben Kingsley as the initially unrecognized and grumpy, later proud and mellow Méliès. And the film is also not without its children's-lit banalities. There is something clichéd from the start about a lonely boy who fixes clocks and then has to fix an automaton he dreams is himself. And in 3D: would Ingmar Bergman have jumped on the band wagon for this obvious and old-fashioned (but contemporarily money-making) effect? (Méliès' primitive ones are more imaginatively stimulating). You can call the story touching. That's diplomatic. Or you can admit that, however glossy and tasteful, it's treacly and sentimental, and at two and a half hours, plenty over-long.

Hugo fixes the station clocks at night, using parts he's stolen from "Papa Georges," the shopkeeper who later turns out to be the lost giant of silent film history. By day he gets to know a girl his age, Isabelle (the winsome Chloë Grace Moretz), who lives in Papa Georges' household. In a Rube Goldberg set of interlocking sub-characters adroitly folded in by editor Thelma Schoonmaker, Hugo also dodges a Jeunet-esque station cop (heavy-handedly played by Borat's Sacha Baron Cohen), who's humanized by his crush on flower-seller Lisette (Emily Mortimer), several steps off from the the pastry-shop of Madame Emilie (Frances de la Tour), whose dachshund wards off the amorous M. Frick (Richard Griffiths). Privately Hugo remembers how his dad (Jude Law), who died suddenly under mysterious circumstances, found the half-human sized automaton, and his aim becomes to find the heart-shaped key that will start it. He thinks if he can get it to work its hand will write a message that will tell him about his father. Instead, it draws a famous image from Méliès of a rocket crashed into the eye of the moon, which leads him to the filmmaker.

At this point the film stops to deliver a mini-documentary about the life and career of Méliès, how he began as a carnival magician at the turn of the century, started a studio and made over 500 films, and pioneered in special effects like dissolves, multiple exposures, and time lapse photography, all joyfully incorporated into short films marketed as sideshow attractions. But then moving pictures moved forward, his work became unfashionable, and most of the prints of Méliès' films were melted down by the French army to make boot heels. And so on. Though the film Hugo becomes and is intended as a loving evocation of and encomium to early film, it unfortunately treats it all, in this context, as a charming artifact, not something serious and intense that a little later would produce works like Metropolis and The Cabiinet of Dr. Caligari. Scorsese introduces allusions to Melies' A Trip to the Moon, Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery and the Lumières' La Sortie des usines, but this is not a good introduction to film history, and only a passing reference to the ongoing need for the kind of film preservation work in which Scorsese is so actively and influentially involved -- though it may be better at that than at telling an original coming of age story. Hugo's own personal journey gets somewhat derailed by the celebration of Méliès, and finally lacks real emotional resonance, despite the sentimentality surrounding his situation and its resolution.

And yet Hugo is already heavily lionized and mentioned as an Oscar Best Film. It's a safer choice than such contenders as The Descendants, The Artist, or Moneyball, its issue (film preservation) less troubling than the one of The Help (racial discrimination), which in turn are all safer than The Tree of Life or (god forbid) Melancholia. James Cameron hosted a showing of Hugo at the Directors Guild, where he heralded it as a "masterpiece," and said, "finally there is a Scorsese film I can take my kids to." He's right about the second part. Since it's not even December yet, it's too soon to make Oscar predictions; the best may be yet to hit theaters. But when has that ever stopped people?

" unlike Scorsese's gutsy best work, it's old-fashioned and blatantly artificial. There's nothing earth-shaking or exciting here. (Made on one fifteenth the budget, The Artist evokes old film more adeptly and touchingly.) The children I saw walking out of the theater were quiet, entranced, perhaps, but not energized."

I disagree. This film does not call for raw energy of the kind Scorsese used in "Taxi Driver," a different kind of film with a completely different messege aimed at a completely different audience. Or do you believe that a film should have universal appeal to everyone? And how does one exit a theater energized? What kind of observation did you make of the children that you could not spell out in your review but seem so adroit to mention.

Simply because you are well educated in the cinema arts, do not presume the general public knows the same level of history. I found the revelations about Melies enlightening to say the least. Like his character in the film (wonderfully portrayed by Ben Kingsley), we discover little known facts about the filmmaker lost to the advent of time. Scorsese's tribute to the beginnings of film (or rather his adaptation of the novel) brings these facts to light in a delightful way. You sound like a man, sitting at his desk, saying "humbug!" to those who would wish him "Merry Christmas."

Of course, I know you disagree!

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And how does one exit a theater energized?

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I regret if you have not had this experience of being electrified and excited or upset or otherwise gotten an adrenalin rush from film, but I bet you have, probably plenty of times.

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What kind of observation did you make of the children that you could not spell out in your review[?]

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I saw that they were quiet. I thought that would be enough. Anybody knows what quiet children look like and everybody knows what excited, lively children look like.

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Simply because you are well educated in the cinema arts, do not presume the general public knows the same level of history.

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I didn't presume that at all. I just said this is not a good introduction to film history, and I implied that it destroys the momentum of the coming of age story.

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You sound like a man, sitting at his desk, saying "humbug!" to those who would wish him "Merry Christmas."

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I'm not trying to spoil anybody's fun. I'm just evaluating the movie. I enjoyed Harold & Kumar more--what can I say? Nobody is rushing Harold & Kumar to an Oscar nomination. That's the difference, and why I'm raining on your parade a little.

Chris, you make me smile. Besides, I've been out holiday shopping all day, so I'm in a good mood. I'm looking forward to the rush of good end-of-the-year films, although some won't make it into general release until January. I suppose that someone, meaning probably you, needs to start that "Best of 201" list unless I've missed it. I wish "The Artist" was in general release. I'd like to see it. Any movie that gets a standing ovation at Cannes must be pretty darn good. Mazeltov!

Weinstein bought The Artist as well as My Week with Marilyn so he'll make the most of it, but it is limited release. Here's Harvey hyping both movies http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7390295n.

I did start a BEST MOVIES OF 2011 SO FAR thread way back. It's out of date now. I have much better candidates and need to update it.

So I started a 2011 OSCAR PREDICTIONS thread.

Click on either one and contribute. There was an IndieWire prediction of most likely films so far that I pasted in. On that list, I have not seen War Horse, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Christmas Day), Tinker Tailor (next weekend), Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, , Young Adult, We Bought a Zoo, and The Land of Blood and Honey. I guess the best are the ones we haven't seen. A lot of these will not be easy to see but that's a good thing because it means if it's a true list that the Academy Awards are going for my sophisticated less totally mainstream stuff. A King's Speech (also Harvey Weinstein) is an example of the cusp of the new trend. It's art house, but it's got mainstream appeal. That might be true of The Artist. It might be true of The Descendants. Nearly all of these, really.

I was looking at the IMDB app on my android phone and it lists the top critics for "Hugo." So guess who is listed (alphabetically)? Chris Knipp at Filmleaf.net. Kudos, Chris.

That's nice but maybe something's wrong with your android phone!

With the amazing incorporation of the more subtle and less blatant, commercialized use of 3-D, Scorese has introduced to the film world a magical visual story telling experience, and captures the youth imagination where time for the audience seems to become irrelevant and the delightful characters seem to be artificial yet somehow vibrant in their performing presentation. One of the best movies of the year, this movie sparkles for its emotive storyline, its rich focus on detail, and yes even its more qualitative slow and perhaps less "energized" pacing that allows the audience to immerse itself in a wonderful, leisurely and historically insightful look into the beginnings of film for the lay audience.

go to filmleaf.com and see whose name is mentioned with this site... NOT MINE! so what do my opinions matter.

My lack of a rave for Hugo (and Walter Chaw's) means nothing. It is listed #9 in the top 10 of Film Comment's list, and #6 out of the top 10 of the Metacritic list collating their set of critics annual best lists. Everybody loves it. It's not your opinion that means nothing, it's mine.

People might pay more attention to your reviews than to mine because they appear less often.

This is Scorsese's 2nd credit at least for the year if we count documentaries for HBO, the one on George Harrison; but my recent favorite from him (since the Stones film) is his HBO documentary on Fran Lebowitz last year, Public Speaking.

If you're referring to IMDb again that listing of my Hugo review (now #103 out of a list of 300+) is there because recently I've been going on IMDb and adding the link to my Filmleaf reviews. You can do the same thing for the reviews that you put on Filmleaf. Howard Schumann explained to me how to do this years ago. You click on "critic" on any movie page on IMDb, then click on "EDIT PAGE," then click on the "no change" dropdown and click on "add one item," and "continue," and then you fill in the link to your review and type in on the right "Filmleaf [cinemabon]" and "check these updates" and then finaly "submit." It 's 5 steps and it's easy once you get the hang of it.

But whether you do or not, your opinions matter plenty to me and the other Filmleaf readers.

Thanks, Chris. I was kidding anyway. Have a great holiday season. Looks like we have a plethora of offerings from Iron Lady to War Horse to others in the pipeline. I have my tickets and words lining up... read somewhere that Speilberg was a shoe-in for Best Pix nod when the odds makers backed off on that assessment. Oh, wait... I read it HERE! Thanks, Chris for your post on best movies for 2011 and your continued hard work to keep this site the level of quality it has. May you have a joyous holiday season... and the same to all of you! Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

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Holiday wishes and cheer to everybody.

1. Chris with his typical creative talent, sums up in concise and clear language in his first paragraph the totality of the movie.

2. By his second paragraph, though, he begins his paragraph with a somewhat misleading sentence using "celebration" and "ennobling" only to go negative with his personal belief that Hugo "lacks the magic" of earlier films suggestive that "more" is "often less" implying that Hugo has too much 3D and special effects that perhaps "ballet" or "music" can better present the magic of film. Curiously, Chris also implies, perhaps unintentionally that without more "sex" and "violence" that the raw energy in Hugo is lost. By calling Hugo "old fashioned" and "artificial" he seems to be comparing the movie to an artificial Christmas tree compared to a naturally cut, still living Christmas tree using the artlike sensation of the traditional ballet or carefully crafted music as preferable approaches to making great movies. The irony here, however, is that while Chris based on his past references to his distain of 3-D he at the same time close to contradicting himself by describing Hugo as "old fashioned" when in effect, Hugo incorporates the most advanced technology use of 3-D and CGI where Scorsese has accomplished the very opposite of "old fashioned" and brought a period film into the contemporary modern era with its rich and amazing use of leading edge science which in some ways replicates in parallel the same evolutionary path that early cinema took as if in a supreme gesture and tribute to Georges Méliès, Scorsese is himself following a similar path as Méliès. The difference between Chris's use of the word "artificial" and his early mention of the lack of "magic" is also suspect as both are similar in that "magic" is artificial and not real, and in essence Scorsese has accomplished in this movie is truly an artificial recreation of the magic of film within a film, bringiing actors and lavish set designs like Georges Méliès to reflect a dramatization of real life. What Chris views of neither "earth shaking" nor "exciting" may reflect in part Chris's having been desensitized through his having committed much of his time and energy and passion to experiencing so many, many movies and films that after a while, nothing seems new or fresh anymore. But for those of us who cannot commit their money and time to experience the wonderful plethora of movies, much like Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a single piece of chocolate to last an entire year and like Hugo, it can be a wonderful, amazing, and yes, exciting experience to discover a whole new 3-D and seemingly understated magical world of early film making and the stylistic characters that seem almost like a ethereal dream. Chris's complaint that children seemingly were not "energized" and only "entranced" seems to evoke within me more puzzlement. Chris's depiction of the "energy" criteria for judging a movie is mysterious in that his focus on "sex," "violence," and "energy" seems to be so blatantly Americanized, so commercially imbued with America's passion for high physical, perhaps brainless, almost meaningless hyperactivity that it surprises me how Chris whose international foreign experience could be so accepting of what seems to be a crass acceptance of American exploitation films. Personally, using Chris's own description of children and Hugo - that they appeared "quiet" and "entranced" seems to be a wonderful emotional behavioral experience for any movie to create... Just like the amazing, magical bed time stories - children are not necessarily jumping up and down on their beds, throwing pillows everywhere, but are dreaming and smiling delicious happy and content thoughts and feelings which for me in this hectic state of our society any parent would be gushing over with great satisfaction for any movie to be able to "entrance" their children in a quiet way, instead of a hyper-kinetic way. Yet by the end of the second paragraph Chris ends it like he started the paragraph changing to a positive tone for the movie which makes for a confusing paragraph indeed.

3. The third paragraph seems to be a rehash of earlier comments, though as with any of the eye of the beholder arguments the supposedly overly long movie at two and a half hours, is only as one's either boring experience or one's compelling, captivating, thrilling experience time sense allows. For those whose experience of the film and its 3-D is magical and entrancing, time seems to take a back seat and the experience becomes timeless instead of long.

4. Chris's fourth paragraph is somewhat of a puzzle in that, he has departed from his rather traditional flow of his earlier more fluid movie critiques in that usually such descriptive movie plot outlines (which is well done here) is almost always found in the beginning of the his commentaries so as to separate storyline from opinion (though Chris at times has departed from the absolute demarcation between storyline line and personal opinion). One might suspect that Chris's passionate feelings about this movie had him subconsiously move his strong beliefs about this movie to earlier in his usual commentaries so that readers would immediately feel his passionate distaste for many of the elements in this movie.

5. Chris's concern about the lack of the serious attention to early film history seems misplaced here, because the tone of this movie, its magic and as Chris would say "artificiality" isn't supposed to be a serious documentary or even docudrama as a film history lesson. The film's focus appears to me to be on the characters, the mystery, and the use of film history as an added but delightful backdrop to the main storyline which serves to enhance the primary story, placing the characters in a meaningful context and in somes way increasing the emotive and visceral experience by allowing the audience to discovery the mystery in the same time path as the boy in the story and with the same childlike viewpoint of the discovery (unlike that of an adult film historian).

6. Lastly, Chris's final paragraph is his complaint of the Oscar's playing it "safe" with its selection of nominated and best film choices. In the world of politics and art, the final choice of the best movie can always be argued on several levels as to its artistic merits, its political change the world merits. Such subjective aesthetic moral judgments eventually fall into the realm of philosophy and metaphysics and the neverending debate of art. Personally, for me, a great movie is one that stimulates, fascinates, evokes powerful emotions, educates, and leaves one with a great deal of satisfaction for having spent the time and money going to it. And Hugo did this for me.

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Holiday wishes and cheer to everybody.

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And the same to you!

tabuno

Thank you once again for referring to me in such complimentary terms in your opening. I don't think I can reply to all your commentary on my review. There is a lot of disagreement over particular words and imagined internal contradictons, and not much of a reply to my opinions or arguments. It still seems to come down to the fact that you like the movie more than I do. I don't hate it. I think it would be very hard to do that and impossible for me. I could see it as disappointing given the excitement and originality of Scorsese's best period of filmmaking. I'm not saying, though you say I unintentionally imply it, that Hugo needs sex and violence -- just that when there was sex and violence in Scorsese's movies, that was when they were vibrant and original. But I'm not as bitterly disappointed in that way as Walter Chaw is. ("It's heartbreaking to see someone as vital as Scorsese used to be end up in a place as sentimental and treacly as this.") I don't see a contradiction between saying Hugo is a celebration and eulogy and finding that it is a bit flat. It's a celebration and eulogy that falls flat. Shutter Island was a falling off too. Chaw calls it "elderly." Scorsese has been in decline from the early Nineties. He has done a lot of things that fell flat, though a lot of people took them seriously because they were by Scorsese. On the other hand he is an industry to himself with his quality television, his producing, his documentaries, his lectures on periods of film history, and his organization to preserve film. He is a treasure. But that's not going to make me like Hugo. However, as I said above to cinemabon, practically everybody seems to love this movie. There are no clearcut Oscar finalists, but Hugo is well up there. So what does it matter what I say?

Likewise I don't see any contradiction between Hugo employing "leading edge science" and being old-fashiond. The leading edge science is according to the ends it is put to. Is a new version of 3D really "leading edge science" anyway? It's true I have expressed a distaste for 3D in movies, which basically is a variation on the stereopticon my grandmother had in her attic that used two images from different positions to give a standing-forth effect, but I've said I like it sometimes, such as in the last Harry Potter, and particularly in the latest Harold and Kumar. I was not critiquing 3D in Hugo one way or the other. Hugo is available in 2D as many 3D movies are and I watched it in 2D. However leading edge the latest version of movie 3D is, it still looks like the 3D movies that were prominently featured in the 1950's. You might make some more reasonable claim to innovation for Cameron's Avatar, but I'm not sure how much cutting edge newness comes into Hugo, if it were needed, or how that would make it analagous to the innovations of Georges Méliès in the early days of cinema -- which, anyway were quickly outmoded, and that's why Georges Méliès would up selling toys in a train station. Every time a slightly updated version of 3D is used, you can't claim that the film is evidence of "leading edge science." That's just hype. But all this has nothing to do with the movie. It's external, or it couldn't be watched and appreciated in either format, and that's true of every 3D movie, including Avatar.

If you'd paid more attention to my arguments and less to words like "artificial" and "real" , "magical" and "old fashioned" you'd notice that I said this film is "delightful" and that Scorsese has "produced something lovely and nice for the holiday season." I said that this is a "serious, lush movie" and that it "may provide the same kind of pleasure that Powell-Pressberger's Tales of Hoffman gave me as a youth." But it doesn't do that for me. As Fran Lebowitz says in Scorsese's 2010 film Public Speaking, one of the reasons the past (for me the time of Tales of Hoffman) looks better to us is that we were young. As I said, Hugo is "made for children and would-be children," and I am neither a child nor a would-be child. That doesn't mean I've lost interest in children. I am interested in entering the world of a child. We get to do that in Céline Sciamma's Tomboy. I recommend it. We get to do that also in the Dardennes' The Kid with the Bike, a wonderful movie. I recommend that too. I have certainly not lost the passion because I see too many movies. The passion for film hasn't been something I've burnt out on and that's why I keep at it. Do not conclude that because someone does not like the same movies you do they have stopped liking movies.

It's so wonderful to read your reply because it's so rich with substance and perspective, it's almost an opportunity to allow us to take a peak into the private realm of Chris. You have a consistent point about how one's feelings about a movie will influence one's commentary. Your apparent dislike of Shutter Island as well as your less than stellar, but appreciative feelings towards Hugo echo my own feelings of stellar comments about Shutter Island which was one of my top ten movies of 2010. Your reply also balances out your more positive feelings about Hugo which I referenced in my earlier post but didn't get as much of a recognition as my focus was on your negative commentary so that your reply presents a much more corrective adjustment for the readership here as to the mind of Chris in relationship to my own thoughts about your commentary.

As for 3-D, I was less impressed by the 3-D in Avatar and strongly suggest that Hugo be experienced in 3-D because Scorsese has indeed elevated and significantly advanced the use of 3-D into a credible art form. Up until now, it seems that 3-D has only been a prop to market movies and make money and provide thrills that only really create an off-balanced movie while Scorsese has in Hugo really made 3-D an integrated part of the movie that puts to full use the nature of 3-D technology.

What I nice Christmas present by taking the time to acknowledge my post. Thanks! It means a lot.

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Originally Posted by cinemabon

I was looking at the IMDB app on my android phone and it lists the top critics for "Hugo." So guess who is listed (alphabetically)? Chris Knipp at Filmleaf.net. Kudos, Chris.

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Chris is on Twitter too. I've never tweeted ever.
Chris is a real critic- he always stays on topic and always lowers his sights properly.

Yes, tabuno but 3D will still be a device to market movies and make money, no matter what distinguished director allows his film to be formatted in it. I thought it worked best in the new Harold and Kuman: it suited the jokiness of the genre and overtly mocked the device.

Sometimes I like the feeling of independence and self-reliance I get from being on the minority side of the critical divide relative to the debatable merits of a movie. In the case of HUGO particularly, because the consensus here at filmleaf and elsewhere is that it is a great movie. I join the majority in feeling great admiration for it. Scorsese is so skillful and surrounds himself with top-notch talent that when he really cares about something (Shutter Island has no heart!) like film studies, history, and preservation the result is something special. I enjoyed reading CK's "minority review" no matter how much I disagree with it (we even like different Scorsese movies, like Scorsese for different reasons...).
There is a bite to your review Chris, a slightly snippy tone to lines like "serious, lush movie made for children and would-be children". I wasn't surprised to see it get such interesting responses like the one from Tab1.
Count me among the "would-be children" :)

Chris may be on questionable ground when it comes to being able to truly comment on Hugo 3-D in that without really experiencing the movie in 3-D, his commentary can't be based on the actual experience, only the 2-D version. His implicit presumption that 3-D is usually a marketing gimmick while it may be true in most cases, his avoidance to actually experience 3-D in movies such as Hugo will limit his movie commentaries with conditional provisions when it comes to movies made in 3-D, where 3-D becomes a deliberate part of the entire film experience that qualitatively impacts the visuals of characters' acting, the set design and the physical activities that occur, all part of an immersive experience that perhaps are vital elements in such films involving historical or detailed physical elements. In short Chris, may in some instances. will be reviewing a different movie experience than other film goers with the result that such comments would be comparing oranges to tangerines.