How HUGO Restores My Energy

I mentioned in an earlier post how a good blockbuster movie gives me psychic, emotional, spiritual, and creative energy. Sadly, only one movie in 100 fits that bill. But those that do are worth their weight in….in….Oscars.

Here are some past winners:

Babe (unlikely “shepherd” saves the day)

Back to the Future (love the Emmett Brown character)

Castaway (inspiring tale of survival)

Flight of the Phoenix (model maker saves the day)

Forrest Gump (anti-hero makes good)

Lord of the Rings trilogy (unassuming hobbits save the day)

Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (the insanity of group think)

Star Wars (love reclusive Obiwon Kenobi biding his time on Tatooine drinking tea) 

Across the Universe (cartoonist saves the day, gets the girl)
Never Cry Wolf (loner scientist muses about life while playing the oboe, battling bureaucratic ineptitude, and saving wolves) 

Twelve Angry Men (one guy’s stand against group think)

The newest addition to my all time movie favs: Hugo by Martin Scorsese. 

As if the astonishing cinematography and period setting (Paris, 1930s) wasn’t enough, the plot energizes me; “retired silent film maker bounces back with help of intrepid kid inventor.” This is a simple film, easy for kids to understand. Maybe that’s why I’m so enthralled. A brain exercised by Ecclesiastes needs something easy to understand!  Here are the astonishing features of this film.

                                              

1. Mechanical gadgets galore! (My love affair with volvelles is gadgetry for the non mechanical).
2. Some scenes took place in a funky old used book store and huge library (my lairs).
3. D’jango Reinhart (I used to play guitar) and Salvador Dali (I love surrealism) make brief cameo appearances.
4. Scorsese pays homage to this seminal figure in early cinematic history, Georges Melies. There are original clips, artifacts, stills, and a reenactment of what the silent stage was like. What a neat way to tell history (I have a couple of degrees in history but learning history was never this fun).
5. Flip book animation (an old hobby of mine)
6. Magic (I used to do goofy magic shows for my kids and neighbor kids).
7. An Inventor’s Notebook and personal diary play significant roles in the plot. (I have my own stash of journals for flopped inventions).
8. Scorsese’s brilliance shows up in his synchronicity: mechanical automaton contrasts with man with mechanical brace; Melies crashed steam trains; so did Scorsese; flickering lights mirrors flickering lights in old films; Harold Lloyd hangs from a clock; Hugo hangs from a clock.
9. The automaton draws a cartoon!

10. Melies thought he failed but finally received his just due.
11. Hugo and Isabelle hold hands; a love story!
12. The broken automaton “worked perfectly” in uniting lonely people. (A person with a disease can still “work perfectly” by uniting people, inspiring sacrifice and faith, and celebrating virtue).
13. Hugo seeks for a hidden “message” from his deceased father (not unlike Mr. Q seeking a “message” in Providence).
14. Hugo lost his dad and sought his purpose in life … and finds it.

Listen to this exchange.

Hugo: Everything has a purpose, even machines. Clocks tell the time and trains take you places. They do what they’re meant to do.

Isabelle: Like Monsieur Labisse.

Huge: Maybe that’s why broken machines make me so sad. They can’t do what they’re meant to do. Maybe it’s the same with people. If you lose your purpose its like you’re broken.

Isabelle: Like Papa Georges.

Hugo: Maybe we can fix him.

Isabelle: Is that your purpose, fixing things?

Huge: I don’t know. That’s what my father did.

Isabelle: I wonder what my purpose is.

Hugo: I don’t know.

Isabelle: Maybe if I knew my parents I would know.

Hugo won Oscars for best visual effects, best sound mixing, best sound editing, best art direction, and best cinematography. I don’t understand movie economics but according to IMDb the movie budget was $170,000,000 and grossed only $115,814,000. This means, despite all those Oscars, a loss of $54 million. Ouch.

If one measures success by receipts, then this movie clearly cost Scorsese. But if we measure a movie’s brilliance by the effect is has on guys like me, it’s a winner.