Hugo (Martin Scorsese 2011)

[Chris Knipp]

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.

[tabuno]

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.