Hugo Cabret: Martin Scorsese's declaration of love at the cinema

A tribute to the cinema of George Méliès, Hugo Cabret, broadcast this Sunday on Arte, is undoubtedly one of the most cinephile works in Martin Scorsese's filmography.

Few filmmakers are as naturally associated with the term cinephilia as Martin Scorsese. From his interviews to his retrospectives, including his work for the preservation and restoration of lost and/or forgotten films, the New York director is a mine of knowledge on the seventh art that he never tires of discussing. . What could be more normal than to find him at the helm of this very cinephile Hugo Cabretbroadcast this evening on France 3 and evoking the films of one of the first great filmmakers of the imagination, Georges Méliès.

First film for the more childish profile of Marty's filmography, Hugo Cabret is the adaptation of a bookstore bestseller, The invention of Hugo Cabret of Brian Selznickpublished in 2007. Remade for the big screen by John Logan (who wrote the scripts for Gladiator, Aviator, Skyfall And Spectrum), the film gives the young idealistic apprentice watchmaker the traits ofAsa Butterfield and those of the great Méliès Ben Kingsley. But beyond that, Scorsese pays tribute to cinema in general in this film.

The shadow of Georges Méliès

Just like the book by Selznick, whose grandfather was, by the way, the cousin of the legendary producer David O. Selznick (Gone with the Wind, Rebecca, A Star is Born…), the film is a true ode to the magical cinema of Méliès. A way of paying tribute to his work, including his legendary Journey to the Moonbut also to recall the sadder fate of the man, who ended his life ruined, living as a salesman at the Montparnasse station before being rediscovered by the surrealists.

A way for the director to pay tribute to one of the pioneers of cinema in a way that is as personal as it is meticulous, as he explained in Figaro in 2011: “His work also particularly touches me because it is linked to the spirit of childhood. The characters in his films are like figurines from the end of the 19th century. They have a kind of innocence, a naivety, as if they came from a child's drawing. In Hugo Cabret, we have accurately recreated the behind the scenes of a Méliès film shoot. We reproduced his glass studio in Montreuil identically, in the Shepertton studios in England. And it took us a year to recreate a scene from the Fairy Kingdom dating from 1903“.

Méliès' work having fallen into the public domain since 2009 (seventy years after the filmmaker's death), although a copyright was restored in 2011 for the colorization of the Journey to the Moonnumerous extracts from Méliès' works can be seen in the film: Spooky illusions, The man with the rubber head, The 400 pranks of the devil… With its warm colors and its adventures, Hugo Cabret captures part of the spirit of cinema, fundamentally anchored in the imagination, of Georges Méliès.

But above all, Scorsese manages to revive the ghost of Méliès in the guise of Ben Kingsleyconfusingly similar to its model. To delve into his skin, the actor confided in an interview with the site Examine that Scorsese had prepared for him at the time a DVD of ninety Méliès films. A rigorous preparation which led him to become one with the character: “In those moments when, you have to understand, almost everything had been taken from him, it was as if everything had been taken from me too. I felt it. In my life, I could feel this bottomless pit that was this loss. I couldn't sentimentalize Méliès“.

Scorsese through the cinema of an era

But more than the case of Méliès, it is to silent cinema and to that of the 1930s in which the film takes place that Scorsese pays homage. Through the sense of reference at first, the film has fun scattering throughout posters or extracts from classics of the seventh art like those of the Lumière brothers (The arrival of a train at La Ciotat station) Louis Feuillade (Fantômas, Judex), Alan Dwan (Robin Hood), Charlie Chaplin (The Kid) Or Buster Keaton (The operator, the Generale mechanic). As for the famous scene of the big clock (which adorns one of the film's posters), it should be seen as a nod to Get on there!the burlesque classic and most famous film ofHarold Lloyd.

More generally, this period film is also dedicated to reviving the spirit of the beginning of the 20th century in France. Among other things, we come across fleeting appearances of great artists of the time such as the jazzman Django Reinhardt, the writer James Joyce and the painter and filmmaker Salvador Dali. The automaton in the film is also inspired by a real work of art, the Maillardet automaton, named after the Swiss watchmaker Henri Maillardet, now on display at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

A little cinephile coquetry in addition, Scorsese even allows himself to slip into his film references to films after the year 1931 during which the plot takes place. The scene of the train entering the station is thus a tribute to The human beast of Jean Renoirreleased in theaters seven years later, and during the final chase scene, one of the shots in the spiral staircase is an almost direct quote from Cold sweats ofAlfred Hitchcockreleased in 1958! There is even a brief cameo from Scorsese in the image (we'll let you guess), which is inspired by the poster of a film, The magic box brothers Roy And John Boultingwhich dates from 1951.

A film between past and present of cinema

To put his Hugo Cabret in images with nostalgic accents, Martin Scorsese However, it uses the most advanced techniques of its time. For the first time in his career, the filmmaker allowed himself to be tempted by filming in 3D, divided between London and Paris (the film was notably installed at the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève and at the Sorbonne). A choice that may seem paradoxical for a period film taking place at the beginning of the 20th century, in the infancy of cinema. In an interview given to Guardian in 2012, Scorsese spoke about how, according to him, the use of 3D allowed him to transcribe the same wonder as the films of Méliès, but also those of the first wave of Hollywood cinema in three dimensions in his youth in the 1950s/1960s.

“Each shot allows us to rethink cinema, to rethink narration and how to tell a story with an image. I'm not saying you should throw javelins at the camera or use it as a gimmick, but it is liberating. It's a real Rubik's Cube every time you imagine a shot or make a camera movement. But there is a real beauty to it. People look like… moving statues. They move like sculptures if sculptures could move. Like dancers“.

Through the use of 3D, Scorsese intends to build a bridge between two eras of cinema separated by a century and to bring more life to this more distant past through the resources of cinema. All in the image, in his words, of the work of the Cubist painters: “If you pay attention to portraits from the Cubism era, you will see a portrait of a woman who looks like a spotlight“, he continues for the Guardian.

A concern to reconcile the past and present of cinema which was partly profitable since it allowed the film to raid the technical Oscars. Nominated eleven times in total, Hugo Cabret won five statuettes, the majority linked to the visual identity of the film (best photography, best artistic direction and best visual effects). A recognition accentuated by the Golden Globe for best director awarded to Martin Scorsesethe third after Gangs of New York And The Departed. Enough to partially compensate for the public failure of the film: weighed down by budget overruns (we are talking about a final budget of 150 to 170 million dollars compared to 100 initially), the film only brought in 185 million in theaters at across the world, despite 1.3 million admissions in France.

The story of Hugo Cabret : In Paris in the 1930s, young Hugo is a twelve-year-old orphan who lives in a train station. His past is a mystery and his destiny an enigma. All that remains of his father is a strange automaton of which he is looking for the key – in the shape of a heart – which could make it work. By meeting Isabelle, he may have found the key, but this is only the beginning of the adventure…

Hugo Cabret is broadcast this evening at 8:55 p.m. on France 3.