hugo

Director: martin scorsese

Actor: asa butterfield,chloë grace moretz,christopher lee,ben kingsley

Data Published: Wed Nov 23 2011

Genres: Drama,Family,Fantasy,Mystery

Key Words: railway station,cinema,1930s,automaton,clock

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0970179/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_(film)

Description: Hugo is a movie starring Asa Butterfield, Chloë Grace Moretz, and Christopher Lee. In 1931 Paris, an orphan living in the walls of a train station gets wrapped up in a mystery involving his late father and an automaton.

Plot: In 1931, 12-year-old Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) lives in Paris with his father (Jude Law), a kind, widowed clockmaker who also works part-time at a museum. One day, his father finds a broken automaton - a mechanical man designed to write with a pen - at the museum. He and Hugo try to repair it, with Hugo's father documenting the automaton in a notebook. When his father is killed by a fire at the museum, Hugo is forced to live with his resentful, alcoholic uncle Claude (Ray Winstone), and made to learn how to maintain the clocks at the railway station of Gare Montparnasse. When Claude goes missing for several days, Hugo continues to maintain the clocks, fearing that he would be sent away as an orphan by the vindictive Station Inspector Gustave Dasté (Sacha Baron Cohen) if Claude's absence is discovered. Hugo attempts to repair the automaton with stolen parts, believing it contains a message from his father, but the machine still requires a heart-shaped key that his father could not find. Hugo is caught when stealing from the toy store owner Georges (Ben Kingsley), who looks through his father's notebook and threatens to destroy it. Hugo encounters Georges' goddaughter Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz), who offers to help get the notebook back. Hugo learns Georges has forbidden Isabelle from going to the cinema, and introduces the medium to her as his father had done for him. As their friendship grows, he shows her the automaton, and is astonished when Isabelle inadvertently reveals she wears the key as a necklace given to her by Georges. When started, the machine draws out a scene that Hugo recognizes from his father's description of the film A Trip to the Moon. Isabelle identifies the signature, that of a "Georges Méliès", as her godfather. She sneaks Hugo into her home, where they find a hidden cache of more imaginative drawings of Méliès, but are caught by Georges, who banishes Hugo from his home. Hugo and Isabelle go to the Film Academy Library and find a book about the history of cinema that praises Méliès' contributions. They meet the book's author, René Tabard (Michael Stuhlbarg), a film expert who is surprised to hear that Méliès might still be alive, as he had disappeared after World War I along with nearly all copies of his films. Excited at the chance to meet him, René agrees to meet Isabelle and Hugo at Georges' home to show his copy of A Trip to the Moon, hoping it will invigorate Georges. The next day, Hugo discovers that the key has somehow found its way onto the railway tracks in the station. As he drops onto the track to retrieve it, he is suddenly hit by and killed by an uncontrollable train that eventually smashes through the walls of the station. Hugo wakes up to discover that the harrowing events were just a nightmare. After noticing that a pocket watch hanging from the rafters of his home is missing, Hugo can still hear an ominous ticking emanating from near him. When he realises that the sound is coming from near his chest, he pulls up his shirt and is horrified to discover that overnight, his torso has been filled with uncovered hydraulics which seem to be what keeps Hugo alive. As he tests his limbs, they too become purely mechanical. When his head turns to metal, he discovers he is turning into his own automaton. As the final stages of the transformation end - his hair and eyeballs disappearing and his face forming into that of his automaton - Hugo wakes up again to discover that this was yet another nightmare, possibly and disturbingly symbolising Hugo’s belief of all beings having a sole purpose in life. On the scheduled night, Georges' wife Jeanne (Helen McCrory) tries to turn them away, but René compliments Jeanne as Jeanne d'Alcy, an actress in many of Méliès' films, and she allows them to continue. As the film plays, Georges wakes up at the sight, and Jeanne finally convinces him to cherish his accomplishments rather than regret his lost dream. Georges recounts that as a stage magician, he had been fascinated by motion pictures, and used the medium to create imaginative works through his Star Film Company, but was forced into bankruptcy following the war, closing his studio and selling his films to be turned into raw materials. He laments that even an automaton he made that he donated to a museum was lost. Hugo recognizes this is the same automaton he has, and races to the station to retrieve it. He is caught by Gustave, who has learned that Claude's body was found some time ago, and threatens to take Hugo to the orphanage. Georges arrives and tells Gustave that he will now see to Hugo, adopting him as his son. Some time later, Georges is named a professor at the Film Academy, and is paid tribute through a showcase of his films recovered by René. Hugo joins in with his new family as they celebrate at the apartment, where the guests include a mellower Gustave who has a new leg brace is clearly in love with Lisette (Emily Mortimer), flower seller at the station. As the movie ends, Isabelle starts to write down Hugo's story and showing the automaton being placed in one of Georges happily placed (possibly slowly smiling).