Scorsese's tribute to Méliès

Rating: 8/10 (30 December 2014)

You will not find too many movies in Martin Scorsese's recent filmography as a director that won't include Leonardo DiCaprio. "Hugo" is one of them. And even with his poster boy missing, Scorsese sticks to what has worked in the past. There is 64 shared cast and crew members between "Hugo" and "Shutter Island", Scorsese's previous film, including Emily Mortimer and Ben Kingsley. The closing credits start pretty much exactly after 2 hours and it is two hours very much worth watching. The two child actors Asa Butterfield and Chloë Grace Moretz don't play characters who require an incredible range, but they both do a very solid job with what they were given and are among the main reasons this turned out so well. Ben Kingsley is the heart and soul of the film playing film pioneer Georges Méliès and he did not receive half the awards attention he deserved for his portrayal. Sacha Baron Cohen plays the main antagonist (if you can call him that given he saves the boy's life at one point) of the film always on the lookout with his dog for little Hugo to put him in an orphanage. If you know SBC, you will also know that he always brings some weird comedy to his portrayals. Same here. Little fun fact: One year later, he played another strangely French slightly antagonistic character in "Les Misérables". Christopher Lee, Emily Mortimer and Richard Griffiths in one of his last performances played smaller parts that did not add a lot really. Michael Stuhlbarg and Helen McCrory, however, did.
"Hugo" is a brilliant tribute to the early days of movie making. The transitions from what Scorsese filmed to what the real Méliès filmed are as flawless as all the other technical factors in this movie. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it and I am not surprised at all, the film won 5 Oscars in the visual and technical categories. Very deserving. Paris in winter is just as breathtakingly beautiful as the dream sequence with the derailing train was edge-of-seat stuff. Maybe the next dream sequence was one too many. The costumes are top-notch as well. Ironically, the movie "Hugo" came in second or third to in the "Best Picture" race at the Oscars (Michel Hazanavicius' "The Artist") is not entirely different in terms of the plot. Scorsese is possibly the best director right now when it comes to making film on film. A large part of "The Aviator" already dealt with movie making and here it is almost the entire movie if you ignore the nonetheless fascinating subplots.
This movie is worth seeing alone for all the film references, for example how people ran away from the train. The film also references "The Great Train Robbery" and the reaction of audiences was the same back then being worried about actually getting shot by the bandits in the movie. What I also found interesting was the thought (by the Lumière brothers among others) that movies could just be a temporary trend and would quickly become uninteresting to general audiences again. Well, more than 100 years later, they are more popular than ever. "Hugo" is a wonderful film and I urge everybody to see it. The bigger the screen you watch it on, the better. It's a feast. If you have never heard of Méliès, that is not a problem at all. This film will make you curious about his work and you can find pretty much all the surviving films from this most prolific filmmaker online.