The Invention of Hugo Cabret: The Art of Movie Magic

Introduction:

Where did the idea of movies come from? Was it from the mind of only one person or was it a collaboration of multiple intellects bringing the magic of the theatre to the big screen? In fact, the latter applies to these questions. It began with the Lumiere Brothers who created the first camera and created the short film “Train At La Ciotat Station”. Then, another man, among many others, took it upon himself to start bringing a new type of movie-making experience into the world. The man, by the name of Georges Méliés, began as a magician in the theatre. According to Russel Sharman, the author of Moving Pictures: An Introduction to Cinema, “he was one of the first to see the Lumieres’ cinematography in action in 1895 and immediately saw its potential as a form of mass entertainment” (Sharman 17). Méliés’s stories of flying to the moon, going under the sea, and the true story of falling away from the public’s eye after WW1 took the stage.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret the novel and Hugo, the respective movie adaptation is one in the same when it comes to the story being told. The directors of Hugo enhance the original story through recreated illustrations, the audible soundtrack, and a cast of characters.

Recreation of Illustrations

Firstly, the introduction of the book is like the opening credits of a movie. Selznick writes a letter from a mysterious character who introduces the story of a boy who lives alone in a train station with a love for clocks. The following pages take you from a close-up shot of the moon out, to a wide city shot of Paris’s streets, and the train station where the majority of where the book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, takes place. This sequence is practically the same shot the audience sees in the film adaptation of the novel, Hugo. According to Russell Sharman,

“Filmmakers like Georges Méliés seemed to catch on quickly, not only using mise-en-scène and in-camera special effects but also employing the edit, the joining together of discrete shots in a sequence to tell a story” (Sharman 165-166).

The illustrations in the book are the perfect road map for recreating the same shots and visuals in the film. The directors took note of the images as they appear, and also the timing of how long each shot lasts. As Sharman points out, shot sequences tell and story, and in this case, they are almost seamless in transportation into Hugo’s story. Another tool, aside from camera work and recreated illustrations is the musical score and other sounds in the movie.

Para 2: Score/ Sounds

In the second category of this essay, musical score and sounds, reimage the opening scene mentioned above, flying over a busy street in Paris while people are walking down below. Instead of the camera, think about what is heard: sounds of trains braking, people loudly conversing, shoes hitting the ground, and the subtle melody of an accordion in the distance swelling These are audible, visual, and sensual sounds that audiences experience within the first few minutes of Hugo. According to Jeffrey Rouff, “Hollywood filmmakers use cinematic techniques of image and sound to focus the attention of the spectator on the salient elements that further the narrative action” (Rouff 1) The musical score under the sounds of the bustling station provides a magical form of ambiance to lure in viewers into the story of young Hugo Cabret. In terms of the book, there is no sound of whistles and passersby, unless a person listens to the audiobook. Bringing a silent book to life in a book-to-film adaptation with a score that wraps the story in its arms makes the viewing more enjoyable.

Next, I want to analyze the scene in the movie where Hugo and Isabelle find the box of Méliés’s old drawings to explore how the music and sound effects make the scene what it is.

The audible and visual representation of what the real Méliés went through after the war is like watching a man’s war from within. The remainder of this scene consists of George remembering all that he lost. This sends emotions of loss, grief, and sadness into the audience. “Hundreds of pieces of paper of every shape and size scattered across the floor. Hugo saw that they were all covered in drawings. Also, inside the box was what appeared to be a very thin, old blanket, covered with images of stars and moons” (Selznick 282). The importance of seeing this scene realized in the movie is realizing how hurt Georges Méliés was in losing his studio due to the war.

Sounds of fluttering paper and twirling notes entice Isabelle and Hugo who are impressed by the drawing they have found. The musical continues to increase until the apex where they see the same picture the automaton drew. Then, in a second, Méliés crashes into the room, and everything is quietly still. The magical realism of the scene comes to life on the movie screen. The music and sound presented in this scene enhances the emotional attachment that the book only captures in words instead of pictures.

Para 3: Casting/Characters

The final section of comparison for the book-to-movie adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret and Hugo are the characters in the book, and who the directors decided to cast in the movie. After the experience of walking into the illustrations, reading the words, and watching the creation of the film, audiences might realize that the actors and actresses chosen for the movie look extremely similar to those in Brian Selznick’s original drawings. Isabelle, the young god-daughter of a toymaker, in the book, has short hair like the actress Chloe Grace Moretz in the film. The young master of the train station clocks, Hugo, appears as the same small, dirty, and cautious boy, played by Asa Butterfield, as the young man in the book. One more character portrayed by Ben Kinglsey shows similarities to his written counterpart as the toymaker and magician himself, Georges Méliés. He has the beard, mustache, and harshness in his eyes from the book. I advise you to look at pictures online to see these comparisons. A question to ponder, in relation to the look-alike quality of the actors and actresses, was the book illustrated with certain cast members in mind, or was it simply spot-on casting?

Next, under the character comparison category are the characters who did not make the final cut into the film from the book. First, since there is a written description of who Hugo was before he came to live in the train station, the fun reference to the Lumiere brothers from history is lost to the moviegoers. “His best friends, Antoine and Louis, both have black hair and liked to pretend they were brothers” (Selznick 146). As quoted here from the book, August and Louis Lumiere are referenced in the book as the characters Antoine and Louis. This quick mention of the real brothers most likely was removed from the film since there was no real importance. It is mentioned here to remind readers that sometimes directors have to cut the fun stuff from a book to adaptation to make way for the more effective plot devices on the screen.

Another character that doesn’t make an appearance in the movie is Isabelle’s friend Etienne. In the book, he was an important part of Hugo’s entrance into the New York Film Library where he learns the truth about George Méliés. Instead of Etienne helping Hugo at the Library, Mr. Labisse, who is in both mediums, is the one to suggest going to the Film Library to research the movies. The other major change to the adaptation of the book, in regards to these scenes is that Hugo goes by himself where he bumps into Etienne, while in the movie, he and Isabelle go together to learn about her god-father. While at the Library in the movie, they speak to the man who wrote the very book they are reading, Mr. Rene Tabard. “The book was called The Invention of Dreams: The Story of the First Movies Ever Made. It was written by Rene Tabard a year earlier in 1930” (Selznick 346). The importance of the entrance of Tabard is that he works for the film academy in New York where Etienne’s character was a student of his. The reason for switching these two characters in the foreground most likely has to do with Rene’s authorship of the book on the history of cinematography. In the course of movie-making, characters who don’t serve a larger purpose or who could be traded for someone else might be removed to make the casting and story easier to track.

In the section of characters, there is a small list of side characters who play a larger role in the film. The first is the Station Inspector whose role in the book was a displeasing figure to Hugo who could send him to an orphanage if found. The station master film counterpart is more comic relief than a man to be feared. According to Stan Steluța “In most techniques used in film adaptations, filmmakers invent new characters; key scenes are interpolated or create new stories that were not present in the source material at all” (Steluța 202). Unlike in the book, he has a leg brace that squeaks most of the time he walks, and he has a crush on the lady who sells flowers. The way the Station Inspector interacts with the mademoiselle of flowers, his dog (added for comedy), and the people in the train station make for a character who is disliked for trying to catch Hugo but also admired for trying to do his job.

Finally, the other two characters that interact with the main group are Madame Emile & Monsieur Frick who talk about gossip they have heard in the newspapers and the café. The only difference in the side characters is that the inspector has a weird knee and a crush on a beautiful lady. It is also worth mentioning the movie creators also placed a romance between Madame Emile, Monsieur Frick, and later on their dogs to add a secondary plot to Hugo’s point of view from the book. The importance of all these side characters is to how directors can change a character’s personality, add new characters, or a bit of romance in order to provide more realism and entertainment to audiences.

Conclusion:

The art of movie-making began with a pair of brothers and a dream to make visual stories for audiences of all ages. A few years later, a shortlist of new film-makers was created, and on that list was Georges Me ́lie ́s who made his own camera, sets, and costumes to bring even more magic from the ideas of the mind to the magician’s stage, through the eye of the camera, and finally into the hearts of the audiences who watched his movies. From Brian Selznick’s illustrations in The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and Martin Scorsese’s directing in Hugo, magic was made on the screen. The elements of cinematography like casting, score and sound, and recreating exciting moments from the book on the screen were put together like a puzzle. As a quotation from the novel describes, “the lines were all coming together, like something in the distance moving into focus” (Selznick 251). There is much more to discover and analyze about the way the filmmakers created the world of George Me ́lie ́s and the connection between his story and Hugo Cabret’s, but for now, the curtain close with this quotation from the novel

“The complicated machinery inside my automaton can produce some images, and it can write, letter by letter, and entire analysis, words. Over 2,000 words. These words” (Selznick/ Ward 511). Working to create any comparative essay between a book and its film adaptation can open up conversations about more than just star ratings and popularity contests. What does the magic of the movies and artfulness of filmmaking ignite for those reading this essay?

Work Cited:

Hugo. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Performed by Asa Butterfield, Chloe Grace Moretz, Ben Kingsley, etc. Produced by Martin Scorsese and adapted by John Logan. Shepperton Studios. 2011.

Ruoff, Jeffrey. “Conventions of Sound in Documentary.” Cinema Journal, vol. 32, no. 3, 1993, pp. 24–40. JSTOR. Accessed 26 Apr. 2021.

Selznick, Brian. The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Scholastic. 2007.

Sharman, Russell. Moving Pictures: An Introduction to Cinema. Creative Commons. 2020.

Steluța, Stan. “On Book to Movie Adaptations.” Cultural Intertexts, vol. 9, no. 9, Dec. 2019, pp. 201–208. EBSCOhost. Accessed May 8, 2021.