I recently rediscovered an old classic film that I loved in my youth; The Thief of Baghdad. It was one of those movies that used to get shown on local TV on Saturday or Sunday afternoons, and I'd usually stumble upon it somewhere in the middle of its airing. I was fascinated by it from the first time I saw it, not so much for the story, which is fantastical, but for the fact that it had a different look and feel than other movies I had ever seen up to then, old or new. I was shocked to find it was released in 1940, since it was in Technicolor with special effects that seemed incredible to my youthful eyes (even at 12 I was a bit of a film geek). As an adult I came to find out what made The Thief of Baghdad so different, and the story behind how it got made that's almost as amazing as the movie itself. But that is a story for another day.
When I saw it again last month on DVD, in its entirety for probably the first time, it still retained its magic, in spite of the fact that my adult eyes could see the flaws in the late 1930's special effects my child's eyes were oblivious to. I then viewed it a second time a few days later with the commentary track, which features Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, recorded separately then spliced together in alternating takes. It's an interesting juxtaposition of perspectives; Coppola gushes about the the costumes, the vibrant foods of the marketplace, the spirited music, and the sensuous Technicolor world that reminds him of his mother's gimbot (OK, I made that last thing up). In his comments, Scorsese has no time for zucchini and tomato stew; he's all about tracking shots, crane shots, dissolves, closeups, two shots, blue screens and the metaphorical meaning of the eye, a motif that recurs throughout the movie. Scorsese is, if you haven't figured it out, a film geek extraordinaire. He loves movies, and when he's not making his own contributions to the development of the art form, he's studying film making and its history.
This brings us to Hugo, Scorsese's latest motion picture. Some have billed this as his first "children's move," though I didn't feel like I was watching a movie specifically made for kids. I guess a Scorsese picture without a semi-trailer full four letter words or eyeballs popping out of their sockets must be for kids, right? Whatever its intended audience, Hugo is a Valentine to the movies; to their magic and dream like quality, to their ability to transport us to different worlds, real and imagined. For a film maker known for his grit and realism, Scorsese builds a fantastic yarn, as visually stunning and original as The Wizard of Oz or the fore mentioned The Thief of Baghdad, which he also first saw as a child on weekend TV. In its totality it's not as good as those other two, but Hugo's virtue is in the attempt more than in the final product.
What Scorsese is reminding us of is that film, and I would argue art in general, is meant to bring us to another place. Our educational system today is training our children to find themselves in the books they read or the movies they watch. There is a belief that they will only be interested in stories they find "relevant to their experience." By this way of thinking the intention of the author is not important, only the meaning the reader, or viewer in the case of film, give to it. I was introduced formally to this point of view in grad school as the "reader response" method. What is central is the individual reader's relationship with the written word, not any objective meaning the text may convey. Think of this as the "Sola Scriptura" for the literary set. Just as traditional Protestant theology tells us that I can read the Bible for myself without reference to Tradition, gleaming the meaning that fits me personally, so it is with any other form of reading. There is no doubt that we bring our own experience to the act of reading a book or watching a movie, but if we lose the objective intent of the author we lose dialogue. All we're doing then is talking to ourselves and we run the risk of creating the world in our own image rather than being challenged to see reality in a different way.
As for Hugo, it's main character is an orphan boy who's left to live with his drunken uncle in a Paris train station. He is from a family of clock makers, and the lad lives like a phantom in the walls of the rail terminal, venturing out to steal food and wind the station's clocks each day. When he runs afoul of a mysterious old man, and then strikes up a friendship with his goddaughter, he begins a journey that takes him through the history of early motion pictures, where he discovers the man's identity and comes to find himself as well. Here Scorsese the film geek is proselytising, trying to induct a younger generation into the Church of Cinema. That's all good; a little education while you're entertained isn't such a bad thing, and it's his way of paying back the art form that he made his living on. As I wrote, the movie is visually stunning. It is shot in 3D, and this being my first experience with its contemporary rebirth, I found it superfluous, when not simply distracting. The sets and art direction are outstanding, but I found that the 3D effect actually detracted from them, not to mention the common complaint that the tinted glasses you have to wear dims the screen.
I thought of this as a requiem of sorts, which usually has a negative connotation; it denotes the end of a life. I'm sure Martin Scorsese will continue to make movies; it's in his blood, unlike Coppola who's been content to bottle wine and eat pasta on his vineyard over the last 25 years, working on films sporadically when he needs the dough. All the same, I see this as the work of a man who has traveled a long, intense road and is making time to take stock in what his life as an artist has meant. It is Coppola who is known as the poet and myth maker and Scorsese the chronicler of the mean streets. But here we cut through the grime to see what it was that made Scorsese fall in love with the movies to begin with. It is their ability to take us to other worlds, open up new vistas we could never imagine on our own. They allow us to dream, and the best movies, like a good book, bring us beyond our own experience to realize we are not alone. There are more things in heaven and earth than are contained in our personal experience, to paraphrase Shakespeare, and all we need are the eyes of a wondering child to see them.
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