Scorcese's HUGO

[Le Chiffre]

This is perhaps the Wellesian film of the year, with pioneer film magician George Melies (whom Welles paid tribute to in his 1946 AROUND THE WORLD stage production) as a major character, and a recreation (in part) of the old Gare D'Orsay railway station, where Welles filmed THE TRIAL. See it in 3D if you can. More expensive, but this is one of the few cases I've seen where it's worth the extra price.

Here's part of a somewhat mixed but generally positive review from the San Diego Reader that mentions the Welles connection:

In his first 3-D film, Scorsese seeks to dazzle, as Méliès so often did at the dawn of films. The result is weak in long perspective and heavy on closeups, such as Hugo’s blue eyes — so intense I felt like a hypnotized optometrist. The runaway-train scene was inspired by a famous photo of an 1895 disaster at the Gare Montparnasse. Though grand and vivid, the station never rivals the power of Orson Welles when he converted the old Gare d’Orsay into the Kafka mazes of The Trial.

Still, Scorsese recreates Méliès’s wondrous studio, streams old film clips, salutes Harold Lloyd and other giants, uses songs from classic French cinema, and channels into Hugo his soulful excitement with the heritage. This is a tribute to the past and a bequest to the young. The salute to old books (also a glimpse of James Joyce) is a mere warm-up for the cine-fanzine fireworks. In it's thrillingly designed and edited homages, Hugo takes wing, going beyond The Magic Box and A Slave of Love and Nickelodeon, coming close to the surreal poetry of Peter Delpeut’s Lyrical Nitrate.

I love the love that Scorsese has poured into this, enshrining the distant roots of his life’s passion. But 3-D, despite some fine effects, often seems a Magic Marker for the unimaginative (the vintage silent movies eclipse it), and the story is never quite up to the director’s devotion. The central problem is that Méliès was a radical antirealist, whereas candid (though expressive) realism is at the core of Scorsese’s best work. In 1942 the fantasist Georges Franju made a short, fond homage, Le Grand Méliès, but the best artist to do a Méliès tribute would probably have been a greater Scorsese hero, the British visionary Michael Powell.

Here's a brief video of Scorcese discussing Welles:

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/161/orson-welles

[Roger Ryan]

I quite enjoyed HUGO which, despite its flaws, is almost impossible not to like if one loves the early days of film. This was easily the most impressive use of 3-D I've seen in a live action film, although the real appeal is in the reverence for Melies and the first thirty years of cinema. Although essentially a children's film, I appreciated the portrayal of the chief antagonist (Sacha Baron Cohen's "Station Inspector") which was subtler than one might expect. At the same time, I couldn't help but feel that Ben Kingsley's "Melies" was just a tad too dour to properly represent the historical figure. I suspect Scorsese wanted to avoid being overly-whimsical during the climatic 1931 retrospective scene of Melies' work, but I was disappointed he did not recreate how the real Melies reportedly made his entrance that evening: after being introduced, the curtains parted to reveal a movie screen on which a film was projected showing Melies at home examining loops of celluloid which hung around his neck and shoulders. After frantically checking his watch, he made his way out of doors and hurried through the streets towards the theater. The film ended with Melies entering the stage door of the theater at which moment the actual Melies ripped through the paper movie screen with the strips of celluloid still hanging from his neck!

[Glenn Anders]

That's a wonderful story, Roger. It's the kind of thing Orson Welles might have done himself.

[Le Chiffre]

Actually, it's the kind of thing that Welles did do himself, in AROUND THE WORLD. Can't remember the exact details, but I do remember from the script that the show began with silent movies concerning a series of robberies in the London area, ending with footage of the robbers about to enter another bank. One of the robbers shoots a gun on the screen and real gunshots are heard in the theatre, whereupon the film ends and the stage lights go up to reveal the robbers entering the bank set onstage. The show apparently was filled with many other such Melies-inspired touches. I wonder if Welles knew the story of the Melies entrance at the retrospective.

1982 interview with Bill Krohn:

WELLES: I'm going to have lunch with some directors that will change my day. I'll meet with Scorsese and some other very good directors.

KROHN: That's very nice.

WELLES: Very good indeed. I've been seeing a lot of them and enjoying them very much.

KROHN: They owe you a lot, not just in terms of scene by scene theft, but the heroic example you set to filmmakers of their generation.

WELLES: Speaking of scene by scene, Martin Scorsese absolutely astonished me, because he claims to have gone repeatedly watched BLACK MAGIC to use something from it in RAGING BULL. That astonished me!

KROHN: His sources are always astonishing, but that film is one of his favorites?

WELLES: Well, no, he's just seen everything over and over. He said that at some point he remembered something I did, and that he used it in RAGING BULL. I was tremendously flattered and then giggled like a schoolboy. I just couldn't imagine it!

[Roger Ryan]

Of course, Welles also attempted to do something to this effect with TOO MUCH JOHNSON in '38 when he filmed silent-movie style transitions for the stage play. However, technical difficulties prevented the film clips from being incorporated.

Initially, Melies started working in film as a way to enhance his live magic show, so he immediately grasped the idea of film being used to "expand" the stage. Once he realized how much "magic" could be conjured through editing and multiple exposures, he turned his full attention to creating films. I think Welles' work in film demonstrates how he incorporated his love of stage magic as well. Specifically, the camera passing through the nightclub skylight in KANE or the transition shot where the photograph of the Chronicle newspaper staff appears to come to life seem inspired by stage illusions.

[Le Chiffre]

Yes, it's interesting that both AROUND THE WORLD and TOO MUCH JOHNSON are considered the two great disasters in Welles' theatrical career, and both incorporated film. He also did the same thing later with THE UNTHINKING LOBSTER, which is also considered something of a failure. But Welles' "failures" were noble ones. He was always shooting for that (Melies?) moon. I wonder if Melies' elaborate use of backdrops didn't inspire Welles also:

[Glenn Anders]

Orson Welles was influenced by the ideas of Erwin Piscator, who had made a splash in European Theater in the late 1920's and early 1930's. His use of scrims, mechanical devices, and film was considered revolutionary. Welles was quick to adopt Piscator's methods, but in his use of film projections on stage, he was ironically not so successful in American applications as he would be in applying those same methods when he moved to filmmaking. No doubt, Piscator himself was taken with Melies' stylized depictions in the earliest of movies.

Glenn