Hugo

Deb 7 Me 6

Martin Scorsese hasn’t really been in my film vocabulary. A quick look at his extensive filmography reveals my lack of exposure to his work, The Last Waltz and The Aviator are the only two I’ve seen, and I only liked half of those. In the last few years he has branched out from his usual fare and dealt with some subjects that I share an affinity with, but I haven’t seen them yet. We recently saw a short news-clip about an automaton; a fascinating machine, often built by watchmakers, that could perform human-like feats including writing and drawing. The news-show mentioned that the Scorsese movie Hugo featured one, so we went to see the movie that otherwise would not have made the list of possible movies to see.

I liked it okay, but came away feeling a little burnt. It was a beautiful movie to watch, the first hour was carried by rich color, great old textures, huge mechanical devises and neat imaginative settings. But that was it, otherwise pretty boring; I kept playing with the 3D glasses to keep occupied. Then about midway it took a turn for the better and became a movie about film pioneer George Melies. Scorsese has a genuine affection for the filmmaker and presents his life and work in the best (albeit fictionalized) light. From there on out, the film had a bit of substance that I could hang on to. I left the theater thinking it had redeemed itself from the first hour of glossy effects.

Then it started to wear on me. Here’s a movie, done by a recognized master film maker done about a most creative and inventive trail blazer and yet the film used a tired old formula that was no more sophisticated than Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I couldn’t figure out who the film was made for, or why he went to such great lengths to decorate a table with no legs. The recreations of Melies sets and the presentation of his and other early cineamteque fathers was admirable and really deserve a much better tribute than this (good looking, but) trite movie.