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The Woman In Black

Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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Hugo (Film)

by Andrew Moraitis | January 09, 2012 11:53 | Edited January 09, 2012 11:54

Definitely not the most ambitious film of Scorsese’s career, but the storytelling is warm and funny, and this deserves credit for its impressive technical achievement.

Martin Scorsese's Hugo is perhaps the best example of 3D photography to-date. Inventive, subtle and elegant, Scorsese's direction taps into the dramatic possibilities of the 3D format, and justifies it as a legitimate artistic choice rather than a cynical, moneymaking gimmick.

 

The story - based on Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret - reads like an amalgam of Charles Dickens and Roald Dahl... if any of these authors were interested in film preservation. Secretly working as a clockmaker in a Parisian train station, orphan Hugo (Asa Butterfield) tries to find a key that may revive his father's automaton, and - in doing so - connects with the goddaughter Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz) of a stern toy-maker, Papa Georges (Ben Kingsley). 

 

Unlike some 3D films, Hugo was clearly designed for the format, with visual and editing choices servicing the possibilities of 3D. In tracking and dolly shots, cinematographer Robert Richardson pushes the visual possibilities of the medium, placing characters, objects and weather in the foreground in some shots, whilst he minimises their importance in other scenes. In particular, a late dolly shot of Georges shows the power of the format, as the image heightens the importance of the toy-maker with a 3D close-up. Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker compensate for the format, too. The editing is much less clipped and rapid than in previous Scorsese films - especially the more expressionistic Raging Bull or Shutter Island - as the filmmakers understand the necessity of lucidity for the visually demanding format, providing most shots with enough time before cutting to the next image.

 

On a story level, Hugo - scripted by the gifted John Logan (The Aviator, Rango, Red) - is warm and funny, if a little disjointed in later stages. The exploits between Hugo and Isabelle offer escapism, but the film reverts into a treatise on silent filmmaking. Logan's choices are usually entertaining and thematically meaningful, but Hugo could be one of the few family films that ultimately engage parents more than their children (Where The Wild Things Are), despite the Jacques Tati-like physical comedy of Sacha Baron Cohen as an absurd station inspector. This could be because children may not be that interested in film preservation. However, another possibility is that the film asks us to invest in Hugo's spiritual search for his father, but then insists on our engagement with silent-era filmmaking, a transition that is less than effective or engaging.

 

Performances are strong, even if Butterfield is a little vacant in the lead and Kingsley a tad heavy-handed in depicting Georges' early ominousness and heartbreak. Moretz (Kick-Ass) gives another winning performance, Emily Mortimer is lovely as a flower-girl, Helen McCrory gives George's wife depth and Jude Law warmly essays his cameo as Hugo's father. Even the normally morose Christopher Lee offers good value as a bookstore owner. 

 

Scorsese is nearly incapable of making an uninteresting or bad film, and Hugo is slick, witty and extremely well made, sitting comfortably - in terms of ambition and scale - alongside recent commercial work such as The Aviator. Hugo is not the most creatively challenging film of Scorsese's career, but it remains a marvellous technical achievement.