Hugo (film)

Context: The backstory and primary features of Georges Melies' life as depicted in the film are largely accurate: He became interested in film after seeing a demonstration of the Lumiere brothers' camera; he was a magician and toymaker; he experimented with automata; he owned a theatre (Theatre Robert-Houdin); he was forced into bankruptcy; his film stock was reportedly melted down for its celluloid; he became a toy salesman at the Montparnasse station, and he was eventually awarded the Legion d'honneur medal after a period of terrible neglect. Many of the early silent films shown in the movie are Melies's actual works, such as Le voyage dans la lune (1902). However, the film does not mention Melies' two children, his brother Gaston (who worked with Melies during his film-making career), or his first wife Eugenie, who was married to Melies during the time he made films (and who died in 1913). The film shows Melies married to Jeanne d'Alcy during their filmmaking period, when in reality they did not marry until 1925. The movie actually downplayed the number of movies Melies created, stating he had made "over 500 films." When, in actuality it was over 1500.  The automaton's design was inspired by the Maillardet's automaton made by the Swiss watchmaker Henri Maillardet, which Selznick had seen in the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, as well as the Jaquet-Droz automaton "the writer". A portion of the scene with Harold Lloyd in Safety Last! (1923), hanging from the clock, is shown when the main characters sneak into a movie theater. Later, Hugo, like Lloyd in Safety Last!, hangs from the hands of a large clock on a clock tower to escape from a pursuer.  Several viewings of the film L'Arrivee d'un train en gare de La Ciotat are portrayed, depicting the shocked reaction of the audience--although this view is in doubt.  Emil Lager, Ben Addis, and Robert Gill make cameo appearances as the father of Gypsy jazz guitar, Django Reinhardt, the Spanish surrealist painter, Salvador Dali, and the Irish writer James Joyce, respectively. The names of all three characters appear towards the end of the film's cast credit list.  The book that Monsieur Labisse gives Hugo as a gift, Robin Hood le proscrit (Robin Hood the outlaw), was written by Alexandre Dumas in 1864 as a French translation of an 1838 work by Pierce Egan the Younger in England. The book is symbolic, as Hugo must avoid the "righteous" law enforcement (Inspector Gustave) to live in the station and later to restore the automaton both to a functioning status and to its rightful owner. The particular copy given to Hugo looks like the 1917 English-language edition (David McKay publisher, Philadelphia, United States) with cover and interior illustrations by N.C. Wyeth, but with "Le Proscrit" added to the cover by the prop department. There is also a depiction of the Montparnasse derailment, when at 4 pm on 22 October 1895, the Granville-Paris Express overran the buffer stop at its Gare Montparnasse terminus. CANNOTANSWER

Question: Was there a theme to the historical references that were chosen for the film Hugo?
Answer: Several viewings of the film L'Arrivee d'un train en gare de La Ciotat are portrayed,