The Invention of Hugo Cabret was already a favorite in our family, and the movie Hugo cemented my fanship. So we were pretty excited to get started on Brian Selznick’s latest illustrated novel, Wonderstruck.
Wonderstruck takes the interaction between great story and wonderful illustration that was the joy of Hugo Cabret to a new level. Rather than illustrating the story that he is telling, in Wonderstruck Selznick writes one story with words and writes another with the illustrations that are interspersed in the pages of words. In the words, a young boy in the 1970s has lost his mother and is searching for information on his father. In the illustrations, a young, deaf girl in the 1920s runs away from home.
The two stories, separated by time and place, eventually become intertwined in surprising and satisfying ways. Lots of twists and turns in the story kept us eager for the next pages. Selznick proves that his creativity has not reached its limit, and I’m excited to see what he does next!
I read this one aloud to my 8 year old. She was breathless each chapter, wondering when she would get to revisit the illustrated storyline; she could hardly stand to put the book down each night. There were a few moments, as Ben searches for clues about the father he never knew, that made me wonder if this book would be the prompting of an explanation of the birds and the bees to my daughter. That did not come to pass, mostly because she didn’t want to stop reading to ask questions.
There are sensitive portrayals of the challenges of being deaf. And Selznick is clearly fascinated by museums and collections. In the endnotes, he mentions that credit is due to the book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg, which is a book I remember from my childhood with great affection. He also mentioned that there are many tributes to that book placed throughout Wonderstruck. So what else was there to do but pull out Frankweiler and read that one aloud next? We are about three chapters in.
Showing posts with label Brian Selznick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brian Selznick. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Friday Noon Movie Club: The Two Sides of "Hugo"
Yesterday, the Friday Noon Movie Club (FNMC? MCFuN? MCFaN?) convened for a second time, to see Hugo. There were three women and six kids from our membership, shelling out the big bucks for a first-run movie in 3D. Yikes. I think I dropped the first month of college tuition for one of our kids. Worth it, though, to look so sly in those 3D glasses.
Hugo is a movie full of wonder. It offers up a visual feast between the city of Paris as well as the clockworks and hidden passages conjured up in the train station there. Plus a bookstore I long to live next door to, and a beautiful library. Hugo Cabret, a boy who is still mourning the loss of his father, is living alone in a forgotten apartment in the train station. His alcoholic uncle, the train station's timekeeper, had taken him in, taught him how to fix and run the clocks of the station, and then disappeared. Hugo, terrified of being sent to an orphanage, keeps the clocks going and survives on his own, while working on a secret project of his own.
As he lives his hidden life there, he encounters a bitter toyshop owner and his adventure-seeking goddaughter Isabelle, and at the same he tries to avoid being spotted by the Station Inspector, who is guaranteed to ship him off to an orphanage.
Hugo is played with wide-blue-eyed innocence by Asa Butterfield, and Chloe Grace Moretz's Isabelle is equally wonderful. But Ben Kingsley as the toyshop owner, Papa Georges, is stellar. Sacha Baron Cohen (yes, Borat) is the Station Inspector, and he lends some comedy to the act, which unfortunately included a couple of moments of bawdy humor that just left me wondering, why? Beyond that, though, the Station Inspector becomes a fuller character than is presented in the book, and you can't help but like him.
This movie is made for movie lovers. For young viewers, it represents a look at the earliest years of films, opening their eyes to a medium that is nothing like any of the different screen options they experience now, unless perhaps they are filming their own stories in the backyard. There are a couple of references to the very first film ever shown, The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, which is, just as you might suspect, a train pulling into a station. While that first film scared many viewers who feared that the train would hit them, the 3D Hugo gives viewers a modern version of that experience. I don't see many 3D films, and when I do I tend to feel that the 3D aspect just distracts me from the movie, leaving me a bit disoriented. But the 3D effects in Hugo only add to the movie, bringing the lovely world to life more fully.
And then there are the themes of the movie, which come straight from the book, and which could leave me gushing for quite a while. I'll try to contain myself. But first for the other side of Hugo, the book.
Some of the younger viewers said they liked the movie, but, as is often the case, they liked the book better. I was halfway through the book (ridiculous, since it is such a fast read), and I really loved having half the book in my head while I watched, then having the movie in my head while I read the second half. While this reading method takes some of the mystery out of the book, it gives me more fully developed characters all the way around.
The book is called The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and it is an illustrated novel by Brian Selznick, an award-winning illustrator. His love of words, movies, art and the imagination come through loud and clear. The black and white drawings take up page after full page, and they are lovely. The book is full of closed up hearts and secrets that need to be unlocked, and broken hearts and bodies that need healing. Indeed, Hugo's whole life is hidden, locked away, which is brought out perfectly in the film as Hugo is constantly peering out, unseen, from behind clocks.
I guess I've gotten to the theme part now. Healing, restoration and purpose are all addressed in both versions of the story. These lines from the book make their way into the movie as well: "Machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number an type of parts they need. So I figure that if the entire world is one big machine, I have to be here for some reason." And, "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." Lovely. Carry on, reformers, transforming and renewing.
Don't go see Hugo to see an action-packed adventure flick. Go see it as a warm, loving and beautiful work of storytelling art. But by all means, go see it. And read it, too.
Hugo is a movie full of wonder. It offers up a visual feast between the city of Paris as well as the clockworks and hidden passages conjured up in the train station there. Plus a bookstore I long to live next door to, and a beautiful library. Hugo Cabret, a boy who is still mourning the loss of his father, is living alone in a forgotten apartment in the train station. His alcoholic uncle, the train station's timekeeper, had taken him in, taught him how to fix and run the clocks of the station, and then disappeared. Hugo, terrified of being sent to an orphanage, keeps the clocks going and survives on his own, while working on a secret project of his own.
As he lives his hidden life there, he encounters a bitter toyshop owner and his adventure-seeking goddaughter Isabelle, and at the same he tries to avoid being spotted by the Station Inspector, who is guaranteed to ship him off to an orphanage.
Hugo is played with wide-blue-eyed innocence by Asa Butterfield, and Chloe Grace Moretz's Isabelle is equally wonderful. But Ben Kingsley as the toyshop owner, Papa Georges, is stellar. Sacha Baron Cohen (yes, Borat) is the Station Inspector, and he lends some comedy to the act, which unfortunately included a couple of moments of bawdy humor that just left me wondering, why? Beyond that, though, the Station Inspector becomes a fuller character than is presented in the book, and you can't help but like him.
This movie is made for movie lovers. For young viewers, it represents a look at the earliest years of films, opening their eyes to a medium that is nothing like any of the different screen options they experience now, unless perhaps they are filming their own stories in the backyard. There are a couple of references to the very first film ever shown, The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, which is, just as you might suspect, a train pulling into a station. While that first film scared many viewers who feared that the train would hit them, the 3D Hugo gives viewers a modern version of that experience. I don't see many 3D films, and when I do I tend to feel that the 3D aspect just distracts me from the movie, leaving me a bit disoriented. But the 3D effects in Hugo only add to the movie, bringing the lovely world to life more fully.
And then there are the themes of the movie, which come straight from the book, and which could leave me gushing for quite a while. I'll try to contain myself. But first for the other side of Hugo, the book.
Some of the younger viewers said they liked the movie, but, as is often the case, they liked the book better. I was halfway through the book (ridiculous, since it is such a fast read), and I really loved having half the book in my head while I watched, then having the movie in my head while I read the second half. While this reading method takes some of the mystery out of the book, it gives me more fully developed characters all the way around.
The book is called The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and it is an illustrated novel by Brian Selznick, an award-winning illustrator. His love of words, movies, art and the imagination come through loud and clear. The black and white drawings take up page after full page, and they are lovely. The book is full of closed up hearts and secrets that need to be unlocked, and broken hearts and bodies that need healing. Indeed, Hugo's whole life is hidden, locked away, which is brought out perfectly in the film as Hugo is constantly peering out, unseen, from behind clocks.
I guess I've gotten to the theme part now. Healing, restoration and purpose are all addressed in both versions of the story. These lines from the book make their way into the movie as well: "Machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number an type of parts they need. So I figure that if the entire world is one big machine, I have to be here for some reason." And, "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." Lovely. Carry on, reformers, transforming and renewing.
Don't go see Hugo to see an action-packed adventure flick. Go see it as a warm, loving and beautiful work of storytelling art. But by all means, go see it. And read it, too.
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