For several weeks I have been trying, on and off, to write an analysis of Martin Scorsese's Hugo, specifically what I found to be the highly formal Fairytale struggling to get out. However, by the time I have finished, these posts have been so vast I fear I would crash Tumblr if I were to post them.
What follows then represents my final attempt to get to grips with this topic in a cogent way.
I should start by saying I saw Hugo not exactly under protest, but certainly not with any optimism. What I had seen of it - the first trailer and posters on the sides of buses - clearly seemed to be positioning the movie as this year's (or last year's) replacement for Harry Potter. I think this marketing campaign was a violent misstep on the part of the distributors, but I will tackle that at another time.
I am pleased to say I was utterly seduced by Hugo. To begin with the movie looks beautiful - the sets, costumes and design in general is like porn to me. Scorsese also filled the cast with some wonderful faces he was not afraid to fill the screen with, and the score was sweeping and involving. Finally the nod to the early days of cinema made it feel as if the movie had been made for me.
Beneath all this, though, I began to become aware of some very deep symbolism trying to express itself. Ironically, this is also where I think the movie comes off the rails like so many Gare Montparnasse accidents.
Before I go on, I should say I am aware Hugo is adapted from Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and that "It was that way in the book" is the go-to defence for scripts that fail to live up to their potential. I have, therefore, selflessly read both the book the movie was adapted from and John Logan's screenplay in an attempt to quell any such rebellion before it begins. I am satisfied that the screenplay deviates sufficiently from the book that any of these issues could have been addressed without accusations of being unfaithful to the source material, and many of the problems stem from scenes not present in the book to begin with.
The first time I became consciously aware of archetypal symbolism was when little Hugo was standing at the doors to the train station, wondering whether to follow Georges Méliès to get his notebook back. This symbol hit me so strongly it was like being happy-slapped in my seat. Hugo was about to "Cross the Threshold".
What this also told me, is that Hugo is not human, but a spirit. His world is not our mundane world, his world is the fantasy world of the train station, and to him our real world is a dark and scary place.
Within the story of Hugo, the villain is Georges Méliès, a once-light but now fallen sorcerer. As a source for good in his youth, Méliès had the power to create life from nothing both in the form of the living pictures, and the automaton. However, he and his perception have been transformed. He still has the power to create minor life like the clockwork mouse, but it is a perversion of his Automaton, which was also able to create. We also see him spreading this darkness, forbidding his Goddaughter Isabelle from seeing films, and presenting a cloud she and his wife must live under.
Despite the fact Méliès ostensibly runs a toy shop, selling things to entertain and delight children, it is in a dark, forbidding corner of the station and the first time we see him interact with a child it is to inflict pain on Hugo, and force him to give up that which was most precious to him. What we have to recognise is that the notebook is to Hugo what the automaton is to Méliès - their sense of self. Without them, both are somehow cut adrift, lesser people. To Hugo it is his father, to Méliès it is his child.
The point is made clear when the last stop on Méliès's walk home turns out to be a graveyard, filled with twisted and contorted statues of men, and he lives in a high tower beyond it. Méliès truly is the lord of the underworld. Yet, even here life is struggling to break out. At the window of the high tower, like so many heroines in Fairytales kept there by the will or enchantment of a dark parent, is Isabelle. Hugo throws himself on her mercy and she promises to help him find his
Upon returning to his home in the walls of the train station we see Hugo's father in a flashback, only to have him snatched away and replaced by a dark version. Like the Wicked Stepmother in Cinderella, this parent figure has none of the love and warmth of the real thing, and condemns the child to dangerous and backbreaking work that is never acknowledged or rewarded. There is something peculiarly hellish about Hugo fate as a maintainer of clocks. By the very cyclical nature of the clocks, his work will never end. He can never slacken or lapse without terrible consequence.
Following the flashback, we are shown what it is Hugo is trying to do. He is trying to bring the automaton back to life. Like a fertility spirit, he is trying to create life from scratch but, like other lesser gods before him, he will have to steal the fire to make it happen. However, even once he has perfected its form, he cannot make the little man "live" without a soul, represented by the heart-shaped key.
This is where Isabelle's true purpose becomes clear. It is only with her help that they can create life between them. The symbolic importance of a male and female working together to create new life is staggering, even more so given that, even compared to the two children, the automaton has a child's size.
And so we come to the essence of every archetypal story - the renewal of the life-cycle. Both Hugo's and Isabelle's parents are dead, but they have the potential of new life within them. Georges and Jeanne Méliès, by contrast, have no children we are shown and both are too old to have them now.
However, neither of Hugo nor Isabelle can create life while Méliès casts a shadow over the world, and he must be redeemed for that to happen.
Within the Train Station itself are a series of lesser characters, some light, some dark. The most threatening to Hugo of these is the Station Inspector. Like any number of threshold guardians before, Hugo must trick his way past the Station Inspector each time he wants to cross the barrier between the two worlds. Also there are Monsieur Labisse the Book-Seller, and three more characters, Lisette the Flower-Seller, Monsieur Frick and Madame Emille, to whom we shall return.
Labisse is also an ancient figure, the "Supernatural Helper". Though initially stern, he turns out to be a holder of valuable information when he is able to tell Hugo and Isabelle exactly where to find The Invention of Dreams, and also provides Hugo with a much-needed connection to his father by giving him a copy of Robin Hood when Hugo is feeling particularly despondent.
Now, with all the pieces in place, is when things start going awry. Several characters and situations are set up, but are chronically underused or abandoned. Firstly, focus shifts suddenly away from Hugo to Méliès once the automaton draws its message. This is not a fault in the premise, but the execution. Méliès was too distant in the early part of the movie.
Secondly, the Station Inspector is allowed to become too much the villain, eclipsing Méliès as the person we should be worrying about. He is, and should be, a dangerous opponent, but Hugo only needs to worry about him when he wants to enter of leave the train station. Part of the problem with the Station Inspector is his sub-plot romance with Lisette. In and of itself, I have no problem with this as a concept, but it is fails to bear fruit when it really needed to.
Going back to the archetypal characters, Lisette is a mother goddess. She is surrounded by life, and lives in a bright, airy part of the station. Even the cruel Station Inspector cannot help but be drawn to her. She begins returning him to life from his injured state, and healing the wounds within him. However, when Hugo begs her to intervene when the Station Inspector catches him, she makes no effort to save him. This is when the Station Inspector, as a result of pressure from both Hugo and Lisette should have relented and permitted him to leave, foreshadowing Méliès's redemption. As a reward for his kindness, Hugo then creates a new leg for him.
The two other characters who are underused, Frick and Emille, fall curiously between two zones. Either they should have been present, as an example of a couple in older age, showing a man and a woman in unity in a movie where every other male and female are awkwardly orbiting each other, or Hugo's actions should have directly or indirectly brought them together. As it is, they get together without any help from him (though still seem to be invited to the party at the end).
Personally, I feel Méliès redemption at the end was too sudden and not traumatic enough, and it was a mistake having it take place before Hugo's confrontation with the Station Inspector.
If we look at another great cinematic redemption, Darth Vader in The Return of the Jedi, we see this taken for all it is worth. From very early on (the start of Act II anyway), Luke knows this is his mission and starts working on Vader almost at once.
Like pressure building before an earthquake, all is calm on the surface, but then the shift is sudden and violent, when it seems the Emperor will kill Luke.
After the incident with the box of drawings, Hugo doesn't speak to Méliès again until the end of the movie, and Mama Jeanne becomes a new threshold guardian of sorts, though one Hugo never defeats.
In the end, with the help of Isabelle and film historian René Tabard, Hugo is able to bring Méliès face to face with a film from his past. Upon this prompting, Méliès mourns the loss of his automaton most of all.
More than a few people have commented that, despite it being the item that kicked the story off, Hugo seems to forget all about his notebook, while others have questioned the meaning of Méliès's cryptic line "He worked perfectly!" when presented with the smashed remains of the automaton. To me, both the notebook and automaton, while being connections to a painful memory from the past, also hold hope for the future. Once Hugo and Méliès find one another, each fills the respective role of the notebook and automaton. To Hugo, the notebook represented a father and mentor, to Méliès the automaton represents a son and heir. Now that Hugo has a father-figure and teacher and Méliès has a surrogate son and pupil, the automaton and notebook become what they really are, paper and gears, not a symbol of the missing part of themselves.
Many people have speculated as to the theme of this movie. For me, it is, in part, a movie about characters trying to speak to each other. In the end the only character who remains truly silent it the Automaton. It is with the Automaton, then, that I shall leave you before moving onto my review. Created by the geniuses as Dick George Creatives over eight months, these real life Hugo Cabret's created a prop automaton that really could draw:
Read my review of Hugo here.
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