Frances De La Tour - Tumblr Posts
Where Hugo, I Go...
Rewatched for the umpteenth time, the lovely film, Hugo (2011). If you haven't seen it, nor read the book by Brian Selznick upon which it is based, please consider a look and a read.
We rewatch films for a variety of reasons, just as we often do for books. Always something new and different to see, to hear, to learn, to experience.
But that wasn't why I put this film on the blog. With the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes, now more than ever, the Martin Scorsese directed piece seems relevant. Here we have the young orphan, Hugo Cabret, living in the train station and maintaining the clocks; the timepieces that make the trains, and presumably society, run on time. Those horological machines are human made and what time represents in the lives of humans is a constant tick tock, tick tock. With every beat of our heart, every breath taken, time passes.
Hugo senses this, as does his young friend, Isabelle. At one point in the film, Isabelle questions the future and what her purpose in life is to be. Hugo thinks for a moment and remarks:
"I'd imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn't be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too."
And during their conversation, Hugo also states:
"Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn't able to do what it was meant to do… Maybe it's the same with people. If you lose your purpose… it's like you're broken."
Turning that scene over in my mind and thinking about the plot (w/o spoiling too much, it is a wonderful homage to humans and art and film and history and human connections) and the ongoing strikes...but...
How is it that we humans have so readily turned the machines into the masters and the humans who created them into the extra parts?
This marvelous film would be nothing without the humans who dreamed and created and built and moved and loved it into being along with the original work upon which it was based. The humans aren't broken, the system is. The studios/corporations must recognize the labor that gives purpose to our lives and place the technology in the place wherein it serves the greater good before time runs out.
I could contemplate this film and its themes for a long time, it is a real gem to view and think about in the context of the past, the present, and the future. Hats off to all involved.