An Amazing Piece of History counterpoised with 3D

Rating: 10/10 (4 December 2011)

I have heard people say Martin Scorsese, it seems, wouldn't have made a film like this. I want to direct anybody about these qualms on that "kiddie film" idea to watch "A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese through the American Movies". To put it in a laconic way, Scorsese was predestined to make a film like this. What makes it enchanting and close to home is that the film is a fable per se; underneath it, though, is Scorsese's true love for films.
The film is based upon a book about Hugo Cabaret, which Johnny Depp had in production for a couple of years now. Martin Scorsese was commissioned to direct and the result is a lavish design with an amazing stellar cast including Ben Kingsley who portrays George Melies with bathos and subtlety, Christopher Lee who plays a book keeper, Asa Butterfield as Hugo and Chloe Grace Moretz as Isabelle. Even the minor role by Ray Winstone as Claude the Uncle becomes momentous to the story. I think the real thing that came to mind for me was that 3D wasn't subordinate to the story or concurrent to the story IT WAS THE STORY. If you have ever seen Yasujiro Ozu's films or "Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" (1975) and films by Akira Kurosawa and even Orson Welles that you'll fathom out that film has ALWAYS been Three Dimensional. What Scorsese done with his amazing crew was that every spatial part of the foreground would be shot with depth of field. Melies at his celebration talking about what Scorsese would refer to as "the illusionist" the magic tricks he would pull with Mermaids and Magicians, it's as though he has been cut out and is sticking out the screen (to use a cliché).
The magic of cinema, the montages of the films to decipher "Papa Georges" despair, the film follows a young boy, who tries to fix an automaton. He constantly evades an inspector and always runs the clock in its amazing interior (referencing "Safety Last!" in terms of cinematic iconography) that his Uncle Claude does. His Father is no longer with him after a fire, while he was trying to fix an automaton, which his son subsequently has tried to fix using bits and bobs he can purloin from shops like George's shop. What's amazing is that throughout there's pervasive hints as to who this mysterious man is such as the poster, which seems to be showing "A Trip to the Moon" (though it's in French so you can't tell).
The film is relatively simple, though its tale of history is extremely pivotal to its anniversary of over 100 years now. Reduxing the Melies sets is wonderfully done through flashback and even little moments like Baron Cohen (playing the inspector who's basically a Keystone Cop in my opinion) constantly having pratfalls and pitfalls on the train station can actually feel more interactive as though his feet are sticking right out at us. Scorsese has not only proved the potential of this gimmicky device, but he's also used it to counterpoint with the old technology as an ardent student still learning his craft as he says. It could be up there with his great films ("Mean Streets", "Taxi Driver" and even "Casino").
The person I went with to the cinema had prior to it been told about Melies by me. I was oblivious to the premise being central to this Man; my reasons for talking about were because I was showing him primitive versions of Joan of Arc because I'm always interested in Dreyer's version, but I think that the way it branches out is fascinating. I then drew to the 1899 version of Jeanne D'arc by George Melies and how beautiful it was in its grainy hand painted form and I was telling him how Melies' anger caused him to burn the first carbon copies of his films. And then I get even more history on it in this film with so much poignancy about "reinventing the wheel" and basically the guile of the artist. For example, Scorsese plays with the dream sequences at one point; the boy tries to get something off the tracks and the train comes straight to him like an old suspense thriller from the silent era with Pickford or Gloria Swanson; though it was different here. The swishing of the train is emphasized as it crashes right through the building and then it's contrasted later on as if it was breaking the forth wall for a couple of minutes in my opinion.
It will be the first time you'll see Intolerance in this format, The General, "Trip to the Moon" and even Edwin S. Porter's "The Great Train Robbery" in this format. Even the projector in the cinema where Isabelle and Hugo go for an adventure flashes right out at the audience as we dabble into true magic. What an experience and I will note though that it will be tardy and slow paced for some. But it was simply rewarding in the end.