BS4305 CINEMA & SOCIETY
ASSESSMENT 2

MEDRIC NUMBER (1319683)
BA (HONS) ERASMUS STUDENT

DOGUKAN SEVINC
Lecturers Responsible: Dr. Fiona Smith
Word Length: 1800
In brief, Hugo tells the story of a young orphan in 1930s Paris, whose solitary life, keeping the clocks up to date in the railway station, is changed once he encounters a shopkeeper with a remarkable past.
While it is a fantastic story, the use of real places makes the mise-en-scene naturalistic; the story is mostly constructed in a Parisian train station. The challenge of setting the film in just a station is refreshing, reminding me the film “The Rope” by Hitchcock, and how innovative it was to create a whole plot line in one apartment. A train station can be viewed as an anonymous place where people like Hugo can live without being noticed. Besides, the people walking around the train station make great comedy with their interactions and thus enhancing the narrative. The characters such as the police officer, who makes every effort to send any parentless child in the station to the orphanage, the flowershop girland the old couple also enable the director to jump between story lines throughout the narrative, keeping the audience interested. Another subject that twists the narrative is the early film history, which takes us on a journey when Melies flashbacks to his time as a movie director. On the other hand, the mise-en-scene is constructed in a manner so that we as the audience can believe that the movie is set in Paris. The costuming of the every scene brings the viewers to the city of Paris; the hat that Isabelle wears can easily be associated with French artists. To convey the feeling of Paris, the train station is set up beautifully, with the flower shop or the café. There is also another touch, the Eiffel Tower, and it can be interpreted as a metaphor; the biggest mechanical object mankind has ever made, while Hugo is dreaming about to rebuild his mechanical man, the automaton, the last memory of his father. The music uncovers Paris, too. Often employing Waltz time, emphasizing charm and buoyancy, it appropriately suggests French moods everywhere. The use of dynamic tones over the accordion, the piano and the classical guitar provides us an old county feel. Paris is truly a city of love and this idea is supported through the romance the elderly couple has or the clumsy flirtation of the officer with the flower shop girl. In fact, although Melies did not marry his wife no longer after his film career, in the movie they maintain together. It is maybe because Scorsese wants to romanticize the story having them still together long after the film career and not to distort the image of love the movie suggests. Scorsese builds a magical world, exciting us with a fantastic story. Explicitly, holding onto the magic can be classified as a dominant ideological theme. The movie is about believing in our friends, our dreams and us. Through the flashbacks, the movie makes us to think about the past days, about the fact times have changed and we are growing up; but that does not mean that we cannot hold onto the magic of our younger days. Scorsese simply creates a contrast between the faded idealism of adulthood and naive idealism of youth. It goes without saying that time is the key concept in here as Hugo’s alcoholic uncle tells him at the funeral:
“Time is everywhere, time is everything.” In almost every scene, we can hear a clock ticking in the background to support this concept. Implicitly, the movie suggests that thievery is not a bad thing and can be executed if you are alone and broke or if you are hungry; we inwardly want Hugo to steal that croissants without getting caught. Here it must be also mentioned that Hugo also embodies traits of “Robin Hood” and to emphasize it, he is given the book. On the other hand, the police officer and his faithful sidekick, the dog, represent the state, trying to catch him. Hugo must break the law, which means he must avoid the state in order to set things right and the state has a open defect, the inspector’s war wound, enabling Hugo to escape every time, eventually meaning that the state can be avoided. The chasing scenes of Hugo and the inspector are funny, reflecting the suggestion that there is nothing to be afraid of the state. In overall, I think that the movie is a combination of half realistic and half cartoon. Sometimes scenes start off looking animated, but we are then brought back into reality. Birren (1969) states that “the perception of color, including feeling and emotion, is the property of human consciousness.” He also suggests red, orange and yellow as warm colors whereas green, blue and violet as cool colors. The premeditated choice of color makes the mise-en-scene an extreme mix of realism and imagination and it is incredibly descriptive as Birren suggests. In general, it is not hard to realize the exaggerated use of hues of blue and orange throughout the movie; blue to evoke sadness, loneliness and vulnerability, while orange to signal warmth and kindness. Along with the emotive lightning, these rich colors give the entire film a very dreamy quality. On the other hand, the camerawork used also enhances the mise-en-scene. The occasional use of point of view shots, together with long shots and close-up shots is really useful to gain a sense of where each character stand in relation with each other. In total, with highly dramatic angles, Scorsese achieved to capture the emotion of the scenes. To illustrate what I stated above, I first would like to analyze more deeply the remarkable opening scene that dazzles me the most, a breathtaking flight over 1930s Paris till we are introduced to Hugo.

The opening sequence takes us from the Paris skyline, flying through the station, through the hoards of people, establishing all the characters as we fly past them and finally to Hugo. The camerawork is very unique in this scene, sweeping and fluent camera movements that follow the character’s exact movements. When we are introduced to Hugo, we see him traveling and making his way around the mechanics of the clocks in the train station, and in the meanwhile, the camera follows him precisely, as if it is along for the ride. It has been claimed (cited in Hughs and Riley 2007 p. 197) that “Moving the camera is also a means of changing point of view and can substitute from cutting one shot to another” and this is what Scorsese exactly did with this scene. These fluid camera movements simply make me feel as if I am on a rollercoaster.Besides, to reveal the appropriate feeling of the scene, a blue hue from the inside of the machine area where Hugo leaves lonely and an orange hue coming from the warmth of the Paris lights outside are applied.

To go on, the second scene I would like to speak of is when Hugo hangs out at the clock after a long tab of the inspector. First of all, it must be said that the scene reflects back on the screening of “Safety Last” which Hugo and Isabelle watch together.

Throughout this scene, Scorsese changed the distance of camera and found perfect timing to do it; although the distance changed quite a few times, from long shot to close-up shot, he managed to show the full view of the situation and thus created more tension in the film. The colorist of the film, Greg Fisher, speaks about the notion of mixing color temperatures and indicates (cited in Hope-Jones 2011 p. 66) that their approach was to combine warm light with much cooler areas, creating an anonymous cold feel that contrasts with the warmth. In this scene this approach can be observed perfectly;the mutual use of blue and orange, thus the opposition acquired reflects the inner struggle felt by Hugo, being happy of dodging the police officer and being scared of falling down at the same time.

The last scene I want to examine is between Hugo and the inspector, in which the inspector towers over the fallen boy. Throughout this sequence, the shot switches from the high-angle, adult perspective to low-angle, child perspective. By doing so, from Hugo’s place on the ground, we see just how scary the officer is. McConkey explains (cited in Hope-Jones 2011 p.64) that “Scorsese wanted most of the images to suggest Hugo’s perspective, which meant a lot of low-angle shots.” Another aspect that can be associated with this scene is the Kaplan’s (1997) concept of the “Imperial Gaze”, in which the observed find themselves defined in terms of the privileged observer’s own set of value-preferences. Here, Hugo’s perspective simply makes the audience feel the authority of the police officer and the inferiority of Hugo as a thief. Hugo is defined as a thief by the privileged officer. In sum, I think that Scorsese made a film in which the lines between what is animation and what is realism is blurred. It is perhaps a celebration of the art of film itself or the 150th anniversary of the birth of George Melies; however, it is obvious that with the narrative, mise-en-scene, characters or cinematography, Scorsese did a well job to evoke the feelings of the audience and proved that “Happy ending always happen in the movies”.

References

ANN KAPLAN, E., 1997. Looking for the Other: Feminism, Film and the Imperial Gaze. London: Routledge.

BIRREN, F., 1969. Principles of color: a review of past traditions and modern theories of color harmony. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company.

HOPE-JONES, M., 2011. Through a Child’s Eyes. American Cinematographer, 92(12), pp. 54-67.

Safety Last!. 1923. [film]. Directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor. USA: Pathe Exchange.

UNGOED HUGHES, A. and RILEY, H., 2007. The multimodal matrix – a laboratory of devices: film and the Formalist legacy. Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema, 1(2), pp. 191-209.

Bibliography
ALTER, E., 2014. It’s a snap. Film Journal International, 117(2), pp. 8-11.

ANN KAPLAN, E., 1997. Looking for the Other: Feminism, Film and the Imperial Gaze. London: Routledge.

BIRREN, F., 1969. Principles of color: a review of past traditions and modern theories of color harmony. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company.

CHRISTIE, I., 2012. The Illusionist. Sight & Sound, 22(1), pp. 36-39.

GRIST, L., 2013.The Films of Martin Scorsese, 1978-99: Authorship and Context II.London: Palgrave Macmillan.

HOPE-JONES, M., 2011. Through a Child’s Eyes. American Cinematographer, 92(12), pp. 54-67.

Humanities. 2013. The Art of Scorsese. Humanities, 34(4), pp. 34-50.

Safety Last!. 1923. [film]. Directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor. USA: Pathe Exchange.

UNGOED HUGHES, A. and RILEY, H., 2007. The multimodal matrix – a laboratory of devices: film and the Formalist legacy. Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema, 1(2), pp. 191-209.