Owner of a Clockwork Heart
In the flim Hugo, an orphan boy attempts to repair a damaged automaton. The assembly of its cam mechanism is heavily inspired by the automata of Pierre Jaquet-Droz. They were built between 1768 and 1774. These automata remain in working condition and are capable of drawing figures as complicated as the artwork depicted in the film. Many nuances were added to make them seem more human. The head follows the pen as it draws and dips in the inkwell. These automata can be viewed at the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire of Neuchâtel, in Switzerland.
Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is a young boy who lives in the walls of a Parisian train station. After his father died, he came into the custody of his drunken Uncle Claude, who repairs and rewinds the clocks. One day, his Uncle is nowhere to be found. Being fully trained as Claude’s apprentice, Hugo continues to repair the clocks in the usual fashion. The only thing that he has left that connects him to his deceased father is an automaton that does not function. Before it can perform its unknown task he must find its heart shaped key. While looking to steal some gears for his mechanized man, Hugo meets with a cantankerous old man named Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley). When he notices Hugo’s sketched blueprints of the automaton he insists that the boy has stolen them from him and confiscates them. He says that if this kind of thievery continues, Hugo will be turned in to the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) who is all too eager to send parentless children to the orphanage. In an attempt to retrieve his sketches, Hugo must enlist the help of Georges’ adventure seeking granddaughter Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz). As they begin to uncover secrets long hidden, the duo realize that one element connects all the people involved with Hugo’s clockwork man.
Legendary storyteller Martin Scorsese has jumped on the three dimensional bandwagon with his recent film Hugo. Not only does he jump on, but promptly takes hold of the reins to drive 3-D in a route of his choosing. Based on Brian Selznick’s award winning novel “The Invention of Hugo Cabret,” this film is an imaginative lesson in history that takes the form of childlike investigations. Normally, 3-D centric films are gimmicky. Scorsese manages to use this technology to draw us into a charming world until we are immersed in the story. Hugo is a love letter to the cinema. Usually movies about movies wax overly self-referential or nostalgic. This film takes a path focusing more on the importance of the preservation of the cinema. Because it is important to Scorsese, his passion is readily visible in the material. Kingsley gave the stand-out performance. His character’s pain and passion made this film profoundly moving. Costarring in this film were Chistopher Lee, Frances de la Tour, Emily Mortimer, and Helen McCrory. Jude Law made a cameo appearance as Hugo Cabret’s father.
You will pick up on the fanciful metaphor that all of these people are only cogs in the much bigger machine of the train station or even life. Whether it is the station inspector with the mechanized leg, the imposing bookseller or the couple rigidly trying to court one another, all their actions are like clockwork. If this movie can get young people’s gears to turn about the books by Selznick or even the films of Georges Méliès then it is something truly great. Like its predecessors, Hugo is the stuff of which dreams are made.
Sounds like an interesting movie! I look forward to seeing it!