Review: Hugo (Scorsese)

I saw the children's film Hugo, oddly directed by Martin Scorsese, on Tuesday. I thought it was fair to good. Not Excellent, not solidly good, but fair to good. I did enjoy it.

Hugo is film based on the extremely popular children's graphic novel by Brian Selznick called The Invention of Hugo Cabret and I think part of its mere fairness is partly caused by the transition from book to movie. The biggest problem with it was that it didn't fully hang together. Someone mentioned that it did have a "first half" and a "second half" and while they were tied just about enough to work as a whole film there was a definite divide and sense of disjointedness between these dual stories.

But first, the good...

The way the movie was designed was quite pleasing, although quite stylized colourfully-- the old blue and yellow was back, although red, white and the occaisional pale green had been thrown in to make you think it wasn't a blue and yellow movie. (But I'm on to that!)

The script was tight; the film didn't show us unnecessary scenes and instead asked us to fill in the gaps and make assumptions, which I know is something I get very uppity about.

I also liked that it was in some ways a love letter to old film; in the first half, I wondered why Scorsese had taken on the film, but it became very clear as the movie developed into this more film-centric plotline. I liked that connections were made between life and the films and once we got into that early film based section the movie came alive.

This will contain some extremely mild spoilers:

As I said above, the major problem with the film is the disjointedness. I got the sense watching it that there were several quite separate stories tucked into one.

First thing you have to know is that the more important story of the film (not the story of the boy but the story of the man) is a True Story. Going in knowing this would actually definitely have affected the way I perceived the story. True Stories are never as well tied up as ones that have little to no requirement to match up with reality.

This True Story is actually a really lovely one and I know why Scorsese and Brian Selznick (the writer of the book it's adapted from) chose it. What the problem is, and this may be a problem with the book as well, is that the titular boy Hugo actually is largely a conduit through which we can get to this other character's story. Yes, the boy has a story of his own, but it's very much as a supporting role-- at least in the movie.

Now, this is fine as a concept. I actually really like it. The trouble is that the film actually doesn't really fully realise it. One of my favourite quotes from a film maker is from Sidney Lumet who talked about a good film being the product of people who were all making the same movie. This means that everyone is onboard with a single vision. All the parts work together perfectly to tell a single, or set of matching, stories. Hugo doesn't quite pull this off.

The movie is centered on the train station, partly because of the True Story, but this is used to make it a convergence of stories. There is a line in it somewhere along the lines of, "This is a train station. People are either getting on trains or off them. Nothing else goes on here." Clearly, the movie says, it does. To an extent, the stories pulled together but maybe an inch more cohesion, a tiny bit more woven together at any point in the movie, would have really pulled this story together.

As it stands there were a few loose threads that I thought were a little too loose.

First, Sasha Baron Cohen. Cast for humour and within his own story, he was quite good, but as part of a cohesive whole he was in a different film. Part of this is the fact it was Sasha Baron Cohen, and there is something a little too satirical about him. The rest of it was simply that I'm not sure Scorsese really knew what to do with him. He was also the only villain in the film but lacked any real convincing villainy. He was simply there to get in the way when the film was getting a little too easy for the characters. It would have maybe been good to have him connect more with the early film plot through some more obvious device and also connect with Hugo through something slightly less simple.

Secondly, the tug of war between Hugo as the main character and Georges was a bit unstable and unbalanced. I would have liked to see more of the early-on story lines converge on or (perhaps more subtley) circle arond Georges. The use of a montage to establish the relationship between Hugo and Georges was especially weak. A single strong scene probably would have done a better job. Perhaps Georges should have been more visually and philosophically part of the train station, even if it wasn't immediately obvious that this was the case.

Thirdly, the girl was I felt a decidedly weak point. She was a tool with character traits, not a full character. I nearly guffawed at some of her more cliched lines and actions. I suspect that this is a flaw of the book rather than simply of the film or the actress. She could have been more key to the story (if you've seen the film, pun intended). Given she was at the station frequently, she could have provided the central character between Georges and the disparate station characters, and clearly did interact with them (teaching all the children to dance), but never became the rounded and full character she could have been.

I may be showing my feminism a little, but I fear part of her problem is not simply that she is a bit of a tool between Hugo and Georges and nothing more, but also that she's a female character in a book about two male characters, by a male writer, made into a movie by a male director. Very little about her rang true for me and I feel this was a significant loss of what could have been a crucial glue that would hold the story together. In fact, as I write this I am becoming more and more convinced that more than anyone she is the most important character in the story and as such should have been much more fully developed and this is a huge problem for the story that she isn't. After all, it's her who creates the mystery by uttering the fateful paraphrased line, "Pere Georges won't let me watch movies, and I don't know why."

!

Lastly, where the girl should have been the literal and central person linking Georges and Hugo, Hugo's invention should have been the philosophical/emotional link. These two people share something very important that is represented by the invention, and we never really got that sense. Partly, I think, because Scorsese was playing his Georges cards very close to the chest, but also because the focus became on early film. The original title suggests that there was also this other key part of Georges-- encapsulated in the invention-- that actually represented him as a person so much so that it was the object chosen to cause [/i]the whole plot to happen[/i]. And yet, it was the film that got centre stage and all the glory. It should have been the invention!

This last problem is possibly/probably an artifact of the movie being filmed by Scorsese, who is clearly and perhaps inevitably more interested in the early film aspect of the story.

What a shame! This was one of these films/stories that was so close. However, I think it used to people and objects as just tools, rather than full developing them. It needed a woman's eye looking at that girl and punching the male writers before pushing her further into the plot to provide more glue between the different parts. It needed someone to remind Scorsese that the story is first about the invention, not about the films.

Review: Life on Mars (US) - Pre-Air Pilot

I loved the UK Life on Mars so when I heard there was a pre-air floating around of the US Life on Mars, airing this fall, I snagged it immediately. I thought it would be fun to watch the two together and compare them.

This has minor spoilers on what I consider well-known facts about the show, and a few vague dialogue and character references.

I’m afraid that compared with the sparkling UK show, the US one loses much and adds (almost) nothing to make up for it. The result is a lacklustre copy that leaves you wondering exactly who thought it would be such a good idea to remake, and what exactly they had in mind when they suggested it.

I’ve heard that two of the cast, Colm Meaney (of Star Trek: TNG fame), playing Detective Gene Hunt, and Rachelle Lefevre playing Annie Cartwright, are going to be recast. I’m not sure why this is happening, since they were not the major problem in the episode. The writing was poor, the directing was lacking and Jason O'Mara, playing the main character Detective John Simm, was by far the weakest of the cast.

First of all, if you’re familiar with the UK version, you’ll recognise the plot of the US version. All of the major plot elements are the same, down to, in many cases, the physical attributes of the characters. The setting is LA, rather than Manchester.

However, the US Life on Mars has lost the sharp, slick writing, plot, character development and attention to detail that the UK show immediately demonstrated. In the UK show, which is a whole eight minutes longer than the US version, it takes six or so minutes to get to the moment Sam Tyler time-travels. The US version takes almost twice as long. What is in this extended period of time you ask? Talking about what they’re going to do before doing it. Shoddy conversation presumably intended to develop character. Longer, indistinct fight scenes.

This delay characterizes the pilot in general. What the writers appear to have done is lost details and certain interesting bits of the plot and instead of replacing them with country-appropriate moments of interest, it simply skips them. In order to get up to an average American pilot length (51 minutes), events are slowed down, conversations are longer, scenes flow together in a more languid way. Contrary to popular belief, fight scenes do not build excitement.

For some reason, the dialogue and character development has suffered peculiarly. Although of the dialogue has survived somewhat intact, it is often it is modified or given to another character. In a previous post I argued that this is a good way to adapt, but in this case, the same scene with the same characters exist but the dialogue is exchanged, resulting in less well or re-defined characters. For example: Instead of the main character Sam Tyler being wrong, he is instead made right and the girlfriend (with the tinned characteristic of “spunky”) gets to be wrong. Instead of her getting herself into danger, he sends her into danger. Presumably this is intended to give the character more guilt over what happens, but him being right and then also being responsible for her wholly undermines her character.

This switching of dialogue roles occurs again later on, again resulting in a bit of a muddle. Generally, the main character is given more ‘hero’ moments, instead of being complicated, and showing his intelligence in using other people’s expertise. The character of Annie Cartwright, supposedly the woman in a men’s world who is allowed by the more modern Sam Tyler to show her intelligence, is reduced to spinning camera and romantic music while Detective Tyler gets to answer the question again. (This very much annoyed me.) The choice of actor doesn’t help: Jason O’Mara is a bit of a slab, without the bright-eyed intelligence and nuanced performance given by the less-hunky John Simm.

Two characters from the UK version- the rookie and the enemy- are missing from the US version, and their absence makes the show even sparser. The only new character was an embattled lawyer, who actually introduced a little interest to the show, but his appearances were minimal.

And then there’s the modification of dialogue. Compare these two lines, occurring at the same point in the story, when seeing a familiar music store:

SAM TYLER: I used to come here. I bought my first… Gary Numan. ‘Cars’.

SAM TYLER: I used to get all my CDs here.

The first line is the UK pilot, and John Simm is peering through the stained record shop window in delight (the camera inside the store behind dirty glass, Annie in the background and records in the foreground visible). The second is delivered by Jason O’Hara while crossing the road after seeing the store.

I don’t even know where to start with these two lines. The first is precise, human, delighted with the memory, evocative, and harkens back to another era, if not quite this one. It reveals detail about the character.

The second is boring, entirely uninventive, vague, and perhaps refers to the very first years of the 21^st century, when Sam bought ‘his CDs’. I understand that the choice of artist might need to be different, as may the language used to express the sentiment, but that doesn’t mean that a slick, fat line can be replaced by a shoddy thin one. The lines were there for the adapters (Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec and Scott Rosenberg) to see. They turned a fat line into one there purely for plot purposes.

It is also the director’s fault. His work is also un-evocative. This show is a chance to lovingly reproduce an era that many of his viewers may remember. It might be a chance to bring a new generation into his audience. And yet he does not deliver with this nostalgia. I’m surprised, because the director, Thomas Schlamme, is one who was heavily involved in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and The West Wing, both of which I like very much. Thinking about it, both of those shows required much indoor shooting- corridors, rooms, offices etc. Life on Mars is more scenic and those scenic moments is when I noticed the directing lacking.

All in all, I found comparing these two shows a fascinating opportunity. The same plot, reproduced with different writers, cast and crew? Delicious. Sadly, the comparison was not a positive one for the new Life on Mars. Almost every aspect of the US pilot fared poorly. The writing was slow, empty, thin and confused. The directing did not make use of the era, and was not as slick as I would expect. None of the actors shone, although perhaps they were held down by the shoddy dialogue and character development. O’Hara was particularly uninspiring.

What I would like to see: A slicker, wittier, more evocative, far more compact, more detailed and more nuanced performance from the writers and cast, and more expansive, scene-sensitive work from the director.