My sense is that there is a growing consensus that I agree with… not necessarily on specific qualities of Hugo, but the schizophrenic nature of the film.
It is a very dark, but lovely children’s film for an act. It is a singular, powerful, thrilling homage to the idea of film as magic for an act. And there is an act in between that mixes the two central ideas. There is also a Tati film massaged into the seams, though it really is tertiary. (Imagine a Sylvain Chomet movie – Triplets more than the actual Tati-based film – as a live action film.)
I really like the children’s film, though I fear that some of the darkness is more real than, say, Bambi’s mother or flying monkeys. In particular, I was a little creeped out by a leg brace being caught on the undercarriage of a moving train. I get that this is a play on Keaton or Lloyd or Tati… but it felt oddly unfun to me. Obviously, it doesn’t end up with someone splattered against a stanchion, but it was an indicator that we might not be in a film that was okay for under-8s.
Scorsese talked about the 30s film influences on Hugo after the screening and it made perfect sense. And they achieved their goals brilliantly. The stage of Hugo’s life, the train station, is both real and theatrical, epic and intimate, and lushly beautiful. Hugo knows all the nooks and crannies, like Jerry in a Tom & Jerry cartoon. (Sasha Baron Cohen is The Tom.) Scorsese treats us to an epic set piece, mostly devoid of any spoken words, that spans the first 10 minutes or so of the film like a balletic prologue. And indeed, holds credits until it’s done.
And when Hugo leaves the train station, you really feel like he is going into a strange, foreign world in which he doesn’t have control. However, that’s not what the movie is about… so it’s a beautifully rendered thread that doesn’t really lead to much. I felt a bit like I was seeing the boy pining over the girl in the window in Sweeney Todd… great scene, beautiful song, but why is he there and how does he see her and… just not quite right. But still beautiful.
Another problem for kids is the lengthy time in which Hugo refuses to tell his story at all. I suppose this “flaw” is, in part, about the time we live in and how we tell stories. But when he is asked about his “secret” repeatedly and seems poised to lose that which is most important to him for being unwilling to speak, it starts to feel like we are waiting an entire act to get to what the movie might be about. And indeed, we pretty much do.
Interestingly, the second “big secret” of the film, which I won’t even hint at here, is similarly dragged out… but doesn’t feel dramatically problematic, in part because it’s not something we can guess as an audience and also because the secret is better motivated emotionally.
Now that I think about it, I can’t really write about the second half of the film without giving away its central secret. But though others will surely not worry about this, I’m going to hold my water. I will say only that the film explodes in that second half with a love of early filmmaking artists that is absolutely still as fresh and exciting as it must have been back then. Scorsese certainly identifies with the artist in the film, on some level, but is hugely respectful. He embraces and supersizes the magic of the artist, taking his cues from his predecessor, never trying to top him.
The audience for this film will be limited by its schizo nature. Paramount, smartly, is selling the family film. But I can’t imagine a kid younger than high school age who won’t get itchy. And I imagine that a lot of adults, especially older ones, will wonder what they got themselves into in the first act.
Personally, I would have tried to streamline the space between the two tales, not cutting the stuff in the station (the Tati elements), but letting Hugo tell his secret and getting to the next secret 20 minutes earlier. I really love the Tati stuff… Frances de la Tour and Richard Griffiths… Christopher Lee… Emily Mortimer as a silent-film love interest… loved Michael Stuhlbarg too… and Helen McCrory. And if there is a non-BTL Oscar nomination we should seriously be considering in this film, it’s Ben Kingsley as Best Supporting Actor. He divests himself of the Sir Ben stuff, as he does in his best work (Sexy Beast and Elegy, most recently), and delivers pain and passion with all the intensity he’s ever brought to the screen. It’s an east-to-overlook, absolutely masterful performance.
Hugo is an absolute must-see and a must-see on a big screen for anyone who loves film. I would love to see it in 2D, because it is another one of those films in which I find myself too conscious of the 3D with too few moments when it matters. Some of the film world’s best worked hard to make the 3D as good as 3D can be… but I’m still sitting there in glasses wondering if I am really getting the richness of the light and color. But you should try the 3D. And we should all probably try the 2D as well.
