In the American culture, we are currently experiencing a lack of appreciation for art. There is so much filth polluting our senses we have become blind, deaf, and insensitive to any art form that either attempts, or succeeds, to transport us to the transcendent. It is in the transcendent that we recall, or remember, our true state, or our soul. Not an individual soul, but a shared soul-“e pluribus unum”, “out of many, one”. While Hollywood can be called many things: a liberal’s soapbox, “empire”, it is still the beacon of the arts. In the age of cynicism, such grandiose statements can be easily dismissed. In these divided times, many appear to be content with being lost and entertained simultaneously. Hugo magically breaks that spell.
I originally went to see Hugo because of Roger Ebert’s review. Anyone that reads his material knows he is not a fan of 3D. This was the first time that I had read he felt the use of 3D enhanced the experience of the movie. I went to the movie to see the effects, but soon realized it was a masterpiece masquerading as a children’s film. It is more than a children’s film, of course. If anyone has seen any of the documentaries Martin Scorsese has made about films, you will recognize that his love of films easily translates to this movie. “My Voyage to Italy” where he shares his love for Italian Cinema, or ‘A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese” where he shares his love for the art of film making and the history of film, are personal favorites of mine. A documentary that deals specifically with the influence of motion pictures on art in the early 20th century is called “Picasso and Braque goes to the movies,” which features Scorsese speaking directly about George Melies films. In it, Scorsese describes movies as the “ephemeral art form”.
He talks about when he first saw Melies’ films when he was in film school in 1960, and the connection it has with his current filmmaking. They “give me the impression of the feeling when I was young, when I went to see film and could escape into a film wherever I was. I’d go up there on the screen and live in the film, if I connected with it; but really what you’re living, unless it’s a very hardcore, straight, narrative picture- you’re living a dream, a photograph of dreams. It’s a very interesting thing on how you can have a machine actually create, something that is very complex to describe in language, in literary language. It is imagery. It’s how you create something that has an ephemeral nature, that is impressions-with this equipment that is very physical.”
Hugo was my favorite film of the year, and one of my favorite films to view in a long time. There haven’t been very many movies that I felt, transported, transformed, trans-something in a long time. For a brief moment, I felt transported to that time and believed I was watching a movie for the first time, similar to the audience in the film. I was transformed back to a childhood state, my mouth open in awe as to what I was experiencing-the visual delights of the film and the technology of 3D. I remember something I read about Pauline Kael once. Someone said that they go to the theater to escape and she answered that she went to the movies to find herself. Few films are capable of taking the audience and giving them the experience of transcendence and of joy. The Artist and Midnight in Paris both dabbed in themes of nostalgia and the past, but Hugo ingrained itself in my memory. It wouldn’t surprise me, if I am blessed to live a long life, that this film will be remembered long into my future.
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