Hugo [Blu-ray]

Director: Martin Scorsese

Overview

Martin Scorsese's adaptation of Brian Selznick's award-winning novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret stars Asa Butterfield, as an orphan boy who lives in a Parisian train station. Sent to live with his drunken uncle after his father's death in a fire, Hugo learned how to wind the massive clocks that run throughout the station. When the uncle disappears one day, Hugo decides to maintain the clocks on his own, hoping nobody will catch on to him squatting in the station. His natural aptitude for engineering leads him to steal gears, tools, and other items from a toy-shop owner who maintains a storefront in the station. Hugo needs these purloined pieces in order to rebuild a mechanical man that was left in the father's care at the museum -- the restoration was a project father and son did together. When Georges (Ben Kingsley), the old man who runs the toy stand, catches on to the thievery, he threatens to turn Hugo over to the station's lone police officer (Sacha Baron Cohen, who makes every effort to send any parentless child in the station to the orphanage. But Hugo's run-in with Georges leads to a friendship with the elderly gentleman's goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz), who unknowingly possesses the last item Hugo needs to make the mechanical man work again.

Product Details

Release Date:	01/01/2013
UPC:	0883929302185
Original Release:	2011
Rating:	PG
Source:	Paramount Catalog
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	2:06:00
Sales rank:	7,609

Special Features

Shoot The Moon: The Making Of Hugo; The Cinemagician, Georges M?li?s; The Mechanical Man At The Heart Of Hugo; Big Effects, Small Scale; Sacha Baron Cohen: Role Of A Lifetime

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Ben Kingsley	Georges M?li?s,Camera Technician
Sacha Baron Cohen	Station Inspector
Asa Butterfield	Hugo Cabret
Ray Winstone	Uncle Claude
Emily Mortimer	Lisette
Christopher Lee	Monsieur Labisse
Helen McCrory	Mama Jeanne
Michael Stuhlbarg	Rene Tabard
Jude Law	Hugo's Father
Frances De La Tour	Madame Emilie
Richard Griffiths	Monsieur Frick,Voices
Kevin Eldon	Policeman
Gulliver McGrath	Young Tabard
Shaun Aylward	Street Kid
Emil Lager	Django Reinhardt
Angus Barnett	Theatre Manager
Max Wrottesley	Train Engineer
Marco Aponte	Train Engineer Assistant
Ilona Cheshire	Cafe Waitress
Catherine Balavage	Child at Caf?
Emily Surgent	Child at Caf?
Lily Carlson	Child at Caf?
Frederick Warder	Arabian Knight
Chrisos Lawson	Arabian Knight
Tomos James	Arabian Knight
Terence Frisch	Circus Barker
Max Cane	Circus Barker
Frank Bourke	Gendarme
Stephen Box	Gendarme
Ben Addis	Salvador Dali
Chlo? Grace Moretz	Isabelle
Robert Gill	James Joyce
Catherine Scorsese	Child at Caf?,Child at Caf?
Ed Sanders	Young Tabard's Brother
Howard Shore	Composer
Christos Lawton	Arabian Knight

Technical Credits

John Logan

Brian Selznick

Robert Richardson

John Logan	Screenwriter
Tim Headington	Producer
Martin Scorsese	Producer
Johnny Depp	Producer
Graham King	Producer
David Crockett	Executive Producer,Producer
Emma Tillinger Koskoff	Executive Producer,Producer
Christi Dembrowski	Executive Producer,Producer
Georgia Kacandes	Executive Producer,Producer
Ellen Lewis	Casting
Doug Coleman	Stunts
Joss Williams	Special Effects Supervisor
Martha Pinson	Script Supervisor
John Midgley	Sound Mixer
Rob Legato	Second Unit Director
Philip Stockton	Digital Effects
Gilles Castera	Production Manager
Michael Sharp	Production Manager
Brian Selznick	Screenwriter
Barbara De Fina	Executive Producer,Producer
Tom Fleischman	Sound Effects
John Bernard	Producer
Charles Newirth	Producer
Adam Hlavac	Special Effects
Trevor Graciano	Special Effects
Keith Kolod	Special Effects
Jay Patel	Special Effects
Freddie Joe Farnsworth	Special Effects
Stuart Prior	Special Effects
Jonathan Bullock	Special Effects
Dean Ford	Special Effects,Stunts
Mark Southworth	Stunts
Gary Arthurs	Stunts
Nellie Burroughes	Stunts
James Embree	Stunts
David R. Grant	Stunts
Jason Hunjan	Stunts
Paul Kennington	Stunts
Matt Sherren	Stunts
Roy Taylor	Stunts
Andy Wareham	Stunts
Reg Wayment	Stunts
Robert Richardson	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

If you've never read Brian Selznick's award-winning children's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, hearing the news that Martin Scorsese was going to adapt the family-friendly classic probably sounded like a terrible mistake or a bad joke -- nobody expects the man responsible for Goodfellas, The Departed, and Taxi Driver to churn out the kind of movie that we associate with fast-food tie-ins. But for those who were familiar with Selznick's wondrous celebration of cinema's early days, that announcement couldn't have been more natural or expected. Thankfully, the movie delivers on its promise. The film stars Asa Butterfield, a young actor with the kind of eyes that trigger protective and parental instincts in any viewer, as Hugo Cabret, an orphan boy who lives in a Parisian train station in the 1930s. Sent to live with his drunken uncle after his father's death in a fire, Hugo learns how to wind the massive clocks that run throughout the station. When the uncle disappears one day, Hugo decides to maintain the clocks on his own, hoping nobody will catch on to his squatting in the station. His natural aptitude for engineering leads him to steal gears, tools, and other items from a toy-shop owner who maintains a storefront in the station. Hugo needs these purloined pieces in order to rebuild a mechanical man that was left in his father's care at a nearby museum -- the restoration was a project father and son did together. When Georges (Ben Kingsley), the old man who runs the toy stand, catches on to the thievery, he threatens to turn Hugo over to the station's lone police officer (Sacha Baron Cohen, stealing every one of his scenes with a performance that recalls Peter Sellers), whose ineptitude is matched only by his desire to send any parentless child he finds in his station to the orphanage. But Hugo's run-in with Georges leads to a friendship with the elderly gentleman's goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz), who unknowingly possesses the last item Hugo needs to make the mechanical man work again. While there's a great deal of plot in Hugo, the movie is primary a sensory experience. Scorsese's artful use of 3D turns the elaborate clockworks at the station into a labyrinth that Hugo traverses with a physical abandon that's amplified both by his age and his fear of being discovered. This is one of the more tactile films you'll see -- smoke, snowflakes, and dust particles blow through the frame, enhancing the 3D effects not because they fly in your face, but because they add depth to the images. If the film were any busier it would become exhausting to look at because there's just so much to take in, but right from the start, Scorsese balances all of the visual elements perfectly with a shot that compares the layout of Paris' streets to the gears of a clock. The visual splendor, of course, isn't an end unto itself. It's employed to tell a story very close to the director's heart -- a tale about finding and caring for old movies. Georges turns out to have had quite the fascinating life before ending up at the station, and while it's unfair to spoil the surprise for those who don't know, it's reasonable to say that Hugo is Scorsese's loving tribute to the building blocks of modern cinema. It's a history lesson that allows the modern master director to re-create some of the most-memorable images from the art form's first decade, as well as craft a tender movie about creating a family. The thought of Martin Scorsese fashioning a family-friendly film released into the thick of the overstuffed Thanksgiving movie season is just as odd as David Lynch making a movie for Disney -- but The Straight Story turned out pretty well for the Eraserhead auteur and the Mouse House. Hugo is also a success, a movie that will probably appeal more to hardcore film nerds than to nine-year-olds, unless of course that youngster will grow into a movie geek. If that's the case, Hugo will be a touchstone in their cinematic development.