The Family of "Hugo" Cabret

Last night I had the privilege of seeing Hugo a second time at my favorite* NYC theater, the Ziegfeld. It's an enormous "Old Hollywood" feeling place, one of the last of its kind so it couldn't have been a better setting for an all guild screening of a movie that's obsessed with the history of the movies just like Martin Scorsese himself. Let's call him "Papa Scorsese" today since he brought along nearly his entire movie "family" apart from cinematographer Robert Richardson (referred to as "Bob") who Scorsese joked was  'off filming a movie with this new guy called Quentin somebody (?)'

3-time Oscar winners Thelma Schoonmaker and Sandy Powell await their cue © Nathaniel Rogers

Everyone else was there: Legendary art director Dante Ferretti, legendary editor Thelma Schoonmaker, legendary costume designer Sandy Powell... well you get the idea...

NOTES FROM THE EVENT 

Dante Ferretti, Art Direction
His job didn't change much in 3D, he revealed. He joked that the room we're sitting in is 3D. It took him six months to build the sets. He and his team built everything: the station, the glass movie house, even Papa Georges's (Ben Kingsley) apartment. With the look of the film they were attempting to base it not on realistic research but on images from the cinema and French cinema of the period specifically.

Ellen Lewis, Casting
She had not seen The Boy With Stryped Pajamas when the casting search for the lead role of Hugo began in New York, London and Los Angeles simultaneously. Someone sent her the movie and she met with Asa Butterfield the first week she was in London.

She added:

Many times, oddly, in casting children you find the child you're looking for in the first week or the last week. I don't know how to explain why."

They decided to have everyone speak in British accents after casting Asa because they didn't want to alter his voice and he was the first actor cast. 

Visual Effects
The visual effects supervisor -- his name escapes me in. Apologies -- had this to say about George Melies as the originator of special effects?

He didn't have anything to refer to besides his own imagination. Before I started the movie I had only seen Voyage to the Moon and I thought it was okay but then I started to really study his films, like that clip where he throws his head up into the stanza of music. That's genius. I had to play it back three or four times to figure out how he did it. He did this in 1905 so I felt rather small."  

Costume recreations, Scorsese joking about budgets and more after the jump.

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"The Age of Scorsese" Photos

Editorial photoshoots that recreate old movies are always good for both smiles and grimaces. The latest in this long chain of stars playing other stars (a motif we've discussed before) involves the films of Martin Scorsese in Harper's Bazaar "The Age of Scorsese" photographed by Jason Schmidt. 

I was thrilled to see two underappreciated actors (and real life marrieds) Alessandro Nivola & Emily Mortimer in The Aviator parts that brought Leo & Cate Oscar attention. For what it's worth, Mortimer has a sweet small role in Scorsese's Hugo (see previous post) as a flower shop girl to follow her sick small role in Shutter Island.

As you'd rightly expect they're adorable while discussing the shoot in the accompanying videos.

Emily: We were worried about not having chemistry in our shot. It's a still frozen in time from a movie so it's a different thing trying to... and also our faces at those angles don't necessearily look as good as Cate Blanchett and...
Allesandro: Speak for yourself.
Emily: Well, you're much more handsome than Leonardo DiCaprio. Obviously.  

Love.

Meanwhile, can we please declare a moratorium on using Jodie Foster's Taxi Driver underage hooker as a iconic look for child stars? It's like a rite of passage for them but you'd think people would get tired of tarting them up by now! So here's Chloe Moretz as. Keanu Reeves gets the DeNiro role. 

There's a few more over at Harper's Bazaar involving Goodfellas,  Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (Emily Blunt) and Gangs of New York (Christina Hendricks and Jack Huston... Christina is a definite improvement over the original but, then, it's kind of Cameron Diaz's worst performance.) 

Finally, Kate Bosworth attempts to channel La Pfeiffer (the guy playing DDL is uncredited) from The Age of Innocence.

Anyone pretending to be Michelle Pfeiffer is going to be a problem for me but ..Bosworth? Hmmm. To her credit in the video that accompanies the article, Kate echoes Elizabeth Olsen's recent confession calling LaPfeiffer "one of my favorite actresses of all time" so I guess we'll forgive her for treading on hallowed frizzy-haired ground.

NYFF: "Hugo" A Work in Progress

The surprise screening of The New York Film Festival tonight was Martin Scorsese's Hugo, a 3D adaptation of the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret (a much better title for about a hundred reasons) which is about an orphan boy who inadvertently uncovers rich cinematic history while trying to repair a broken automatron that is his only cherished reminder of his father. Martin Scorsese introduced the film himself and seemed a bit embarrassed by the standing ovation before the screening. Perhaps he was thinking Calm down. What if you don't like it?!? 

Father and Son and Automatron in "Hugo"

Though you'll undoubtedly see several full reviews online tonight, we were given a finger wagging public reminder pre-screening that we weren't to do so. Scorsese warned us that the color correction was not finished, the score was a temporary rendition of the completed score which Howard Shore is currently recording, and some of the effects and the 3D still needed touching up. This was especially true of the opening pre-title segment which had a lot of computer graphics in lieu of actual people and objects. So absent an actual review, let it suffice to say that I was too caught up in it to take ANY notes (the only thing written on my pad is "still needs color cor..." yep, that's it!) and was very pleasantly surprised.  

Ben Kingsley as the mysterious Papa GeorgeI had found the trailer so manic and gimmicky that I assumed the film would be a noisy disaster but the completed -- excuse me, nearly completed -- movie is actually fairly gentle and lovely despite flirting with manic slapstick on a few occassions. Production designer and certain Oscar nominee (again) Dante Ferretti's clock motif on steroids should read garish since Hugo lives inside a train station which seems to house ten thousand of them, all of which he hand winds daily. Instead the sets feel like intricate beauties with tiny hand-crafted parts. The film is still settling in my mind and I heard everything from raves to loud but minor quibbling while briefly chatting with other moviegoers outside. But if you've ever loved France, Books, Fiddling With How Gadgets Work, or The History of Cinema, it's a love letter you'll most definitely want to read when it opens next month.

NYFF: "George Harrison: Living in the Material World"

Serious Film's Michael Cusumano here to report on what will surely go down as one of my favorite titles of the New York Film Festival and one of the most entertaining movies of 2011.

Of the many pleasures of Martin Scorsese’s new documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World the most amazing must be that it managed to make several Beatles songs feel new again. For the first hour of the documentary we watch as the young and intense Harrison takes a backseat to brilliance and charisma of Lennon/McCartney. When the unspeakably beautiful strains of Harrison’s Something finally break out over the theater speakers, it isn't just the power of the music that gets to you but the thrill of watching a world class talent explode with his full potential. It's an emotionally overwhelming moment, far from the only one in Scorsese’s second great rock documentary after his equally brilliant Bob Dylan masterpiece No Direction Home. 

As with that documentary, Marty skips right past the usual biopic beats and aims for the heart of the man. In the film's opening moments we cut from the early seeds of Beatlemania straight to the band’s final, tired dissolution under a mountain of legal documents. It’s Marty’s way of alerting us that this will not be the usual Ed Sullivan and screaming teeny bopper montage we’ve all seen a thousand times. Rather, this is the story of one of the 20th century’s seminal figures and how achieving unimaginable success at an early age led him to search for a fulfillment fame couldn’t bring.

Five years in the making, Material World automatically qualifies as essential viewing for anyone who cares about rock history or, for that matter, documentary filmmaking. In addition to new interviews with all the key players in the story including surviving Beatles Paul and Ringo, Marty’s research team has done an heroic job tracing down footage that hasn’t seen the light of the day for decades, including moving, unfiltered looks at the tension of the band near its end. 

Harrison was a driving force not just in music, but in charity, the British film industry, and, with his well-publicized embrace of Eastern cultures, a major, radical influence on spirituality in the western world. Dealing with a man at the heart of the entertainment industry who nevertheless hungered for spiritual truth, Scorsese clearly has a strong affinity for his subject. And for all the cultural significance covered, the success of this film comes down to Scorsese’s earnest attempt to map the soul of his fellow artist. 

@ London Premiere: Scorsese w/ Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, Olivia Harrison, Ringo Starr

Previously on NYFF
A Separation floors Nathaniel. A frontrunner for the Oscar?
Carnage raises its voice at Nathaniel but doesn't quite scream.
Miss Bala wins the "must-see crown" from judge Michael.
Tahrir drops Michael right down in the titular Square.
A Dangerous Method excites Kurt... not in that way, perv!
The Loneliest Planet brushes against Nathaniel's skin.
Melancholia shows Michael the end of von Trier's world. 

DiLinkrio

© Phil NotoKeyframe a look back at the multiple Tilda Swintons of Teknolust
The Siren and Sunset Gun on Gene Tierney in Leave Her To Heaven 
World of Wonder gossiping about Will Smith and Jada Pinkett's breakup which they're denying (for now)
IndieWire has a chart of the top ten lesbian-centric box office hits: The Hours and Heavenly Creatures -- two films we like to talk about! -- bookend the chart. It's a remarkably high quality top ten all told. 

⬅ Your Nice New Outfit This is wonderful. The artist Phil Noto imagines society page coverage of superhero parties involving The Avengers and X-Men and the like allegedly shot by Ant-Man himself, Hank Pym. [P.S. If you're wondering why I always try to mention names of artists and such it's because I hate it when people don't get credit for their work. I wish the internet would respect province more... I just found out that my "Dead Wives Club" poster mockup which was satirizing Leonardo DiCaprio's career has finally taken off on tumblr and yet I wasn't credited for creating the joke or for making the poster. Sad face me.]

Zimbio Thelma & Louise has a 20th anniversary Academy screening in LA. Sadly Susan Sarandon didn't show. So it was basically Thelma & Nope, Just Thelma. This is even worse than last week when Pfeiffer wasn't at the Scarface thing.
Just Jared Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio in training on the set of The Great Gatsby.

Frankly My Dear... Speaking of Leo. He's lined up his 5th collaboration with Martin Scorsese. They'll remake The Gambler (1974) together. If you're keeping track DeNiro and Scorsese made 8 films together. DiCaprio seems determined to overthrow him in the Scorsese History.