For 50 years, Martin Scorsese has been directing, yet he has never ventured into family films. His narratives have often explored gangsters, vigilantes, and corrupt police, but until now, he has not crafted a whimsical, heartwarming fairy tale.
Hugo, released on December 2, showcases breathtaking sets at Shepperton Studios, featuring Ben Kingsley as French film pioneer Georges Méliès and Sacha Baron Cohen as a charmingly disheveled station inspector, along with brief appearances by Jude Law and Ray Winstone.
This fantasy adventure unfolds in Montparnasse station, Paris, at the dawn of the 20th century and is based on Brian Selznick’s acclaimed 2007 children’s book, The Invention Of Hugo Cabret, a 540-page volume that intertwines with the true story of Méliès, a cinematic alchemist whose extraordinary short films, including the 1902 classic A Trip To The Moon, continue to inspire filmmakers to this day.
Méliès’s film career was not financially rewarding, and as significant French and American studios emerged, he faced bankruptcy. During World War I, the French army seized his films, melting them down for boot heels.
‘As a child, my father frequently took me to the movies,’ the director shares.
‘The cinema was a special refuge for us—it provided a time for intimacy and a chance to share profound emotional experiences together.’
Much of the filming took place at Shepperton, where a substantial set included a replica of Méliès’s glass-enclosed studio, originally constructed outside Paris in 1897.
The Montparnasse station set measured 150ft in length, 119ft in width, and 41ft in height. One of the film’s most notable scenes is a train crash, inspired by an actual incident in 1895 when a speeding locomotive barreled through a grand ornate window at Montparnasse.
While Scorsese could have opted for CGI to recreate the crash, visual-effects supervisor Rob Legato had an alternative approach…
‘My instinct was to film it,’ Legato explains. ‘Having experience with filming miniature models in Titanic and Apollo 13, we created the train and station window in a 1:4 scale, yielding an action that closely resembled a life-sized crash.’
It took designers and engineers four months to replicate the 15ft-long train and the 20ft-tall window. The crash was propelled by a motor beneath the tracks and lasted only a second-and-a-half, but in the film, it is portrayed in slow motion. Given the scale of the production, the figures are remarkable.
For the train-station set alone, the filmmakers required 100 miles of electric cable, featuring 750 large hanging lamps with a total rating of 3.1 million watts, equivalent to over 50,000 60W bulbs.
The crew comprised 34 prop builders, 144 set builders, 60 sets, 40 costume assistants, hundreds of costumes, 500 extras, 15 makeup artists, 13 hairstylists, 50 electricians, 17 camera operators, 42 miniatures experts, and countless others worldwide who played a role in the creation of Hugo.
Additionally, the film was shot in 3D, a decision Scorsese hopes will provide viewers with an exhilarating experience akin to what Méliès’s films offered over a century ago.
The final product, crafted from 135 hours of footage, serves as a tribute to cinema.
Following numerous dark thrillers, it represents Scorsese’s tribute to the genuine enchantment found in films.
by Helena Bryanlith
