Hugo

Martin Scorsese’s 2011 film spends its first half as a chase around a railway station: inspector, dog, clock tower. The real subject opens only after the midpoint, when the toy seller turns out to be Georges Méliès, a forgotten director from cinema’s earliest years. Scorsese’s first film in three dimensions pushes depth into the frame rather than out at the audience: dust, steam and snow in the station. A hundred and twenty six minutes is long for a boy repairing an automaton, and the closing stretch turns openly into a plea for preservation. Chris Wedge was attached to direct before Scorsese, and the shoot used the then new Alexa cameras on stereo rigs. Méliès’ bankruptcy, his film stock melted for celluloid and his toy stall at Montparnasse are accurate, but the film never mentions his two children, his brother Gaston or his first wife Eugénie, and it shows him married to Jeanne d’Alcy years before that marriage actually took place in 1925. Eleven nominations brought five awards, all in craft categories, while the film lost money. A good fit if you will give the second half over to Méliès’ own films returning to a screen. Not for a child brought for the adventure on the poster: the mystery is solved at the midpoint and the rest argues for old film.