As I was watching Martin Scorsese's foray into 3D, the new movie "Hugo", it was this observation in Barron's book which came to me. I had not thought much about it of late, though it is a favorite. So really and truly, the movie was a catylst propelling it back to my mind much like the silent film pioneer George Melies propelled a fictional rocket into the eye of the man in the moon!
A little boy, Hugo Cabret, is the son of a master clockmaker. Father, a kind and sensitive man, and son, together seek to repair an amazing piece of machinery, an automaton, its body wire and gears, its face robotic, but oddly peaceful and sweet. In its original incarnation, and set in motion by a special key of which they do not have possession, the automaton could write. Before they can complete the repairs, the father is killed in a freak fire accident. Hugo is taken in to live in the dismal heights and bowels of a Paris train station by a bullying and drunken uncle who is the caretaker of its many large and small clocks. The uncle disappears. The boy simply continues the work meanwhile attempting to find (meaning steal) parts with which he hopes to finish the repairs on the mechanical man so that he might, in his heart broken fantasy, receive some communication from his dead father. He is constantly chased, particularly when he grabs a bit of food, by a manic police officer in charge of the law orderliness of the station. This is a sad soul himself, once an orphan, with a leg in a brace, who seeks, but seems unable to find love or companionship, although he has his eye on a pretty flower girl.
A curmudgeonly old toymaker, with a kiosk in the train station, becomes Hugo's most pressing nemesis when he catches the boy with the errant parts he has gathered. He not only takes the various gears, but also a notebook with intricate mechanical drawings which the boy treasures, a handbook to the repairs of the automaton. The old man seems mesmerized by the notebook, and not only refuses to give it back, but initially and cruelly gives the boy ashes to prove that he has burned it. Hugo is persistent and follows the man home. A child there, a ward of the old man and his wife, named Isabelle befrieds Hugo and with him seeks to unlock the reason for the old man's interest and his cryptic behavior.
At first Hugo is reluctant to admit Isabelle into his world, one of which nearly no one knows. But Isabelle is an adventurer, grabbing the gusto of life and she is enthusiastic about her role in helping Hugo. He shows her the automaton. It being a world of synchonicity, Isabelle has a necklace in the form of a key that precisely fits the mechanical man. When finally it re-activates, it turns out not to write, but to draw and what it draws is a picture of a man in the moon with a space capsule in one of its eyes. The signature is all it writes, "Georges Melies".
The children go to the large library and discover that Melies is a long forgotten pioneer filmmaker of its earliest years. History records that he is dead, but the children discover evidence that in fact it is the deeply sad old man who has bedevilled Hugo and is raising Isabelle.
Another twist of fate brings the children into acquaintance with an admirer of and expert in all things Melies. This man has what he understands to be the only extant copy of any of his films, the film that is represented by the drawing of the automaton, an invention of the same George Melies.
When they all appear at the home of Mr. Melies, now living under an assumed name, Melies wife, fearful of dredging up the pain that has left her husband emotionally broken at a career that ultimately seems to have meant nothing, nearly sends them away. But beckoned by a chance to see the one remaining film in which she appeared--she was usually the star of the Melies films--she allows them to flicker it in another room, so as not to disturb the old man.
His ears are sensitive to the sound of a projector and Melies has attended the brief screening without their awareness. He laments the act of impulse that caused him to destroy his sets and his copies of films, and the loss of all including an automaton that he built many years before which had been lost to him.
Hugo, now having the full secret of the machine that so connects him to his late father, runs back to the train station to bring it to Melies. Waylaid by the inspector who has found out that the boy's uncle died in a drunken stupor and drowned in the Seine, the boy is slated to be sent off to the orphanage. But moved by the love of his flower girl and the entreaties of other denizens of the station's kiosks, the sad inspector lets the circle close joining all these disparate stories and people and bringing them into a holistic community of love.
Hugo's love of his father, the passion for something they shared, though seeming futile at times and unlikely to be requited, fit into other lives and into other stories, all making one tapestry. He pressed forward though he knew not where he would end, and in so doing, he found himself, and helped others find themselves for their posterity.
The movie has received mixed reviews. I found it to be a splendid infusion of well crafted optimism. I do not usually like 3D movies, and I heard my friends next to me commenting that it was unnecessary, but it seemed like a perfect extra brushstroke to me. When the boy ran down the steps and corridors of his maze like hideout, I was carried with him, I felt his heartbeat, his urgency, his intensity and his fear. I wanted to touch, and felt that I might be able to do so for REAL, the books, and the face of the automaton. I was in their world.
Every moment is precious because there are no accidents. It is just as true perhaps that there are no accidents because every moment is precious. Let us pay attention to the moments and remember that whether we realize it or not, we each have a role to play with and for each other.
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