We caught up with the director of Hugo yesterday, where Martin Scorsese talked about his use of 3D, the history of cinema, and working with young actors...
Hugo, the new family-friendly tale from Martin Scorsese, has more than one unexpected twist. Firstly, it’s essentially a children’s movie directed by the king of guns and gangsters, but it’s also in 3D. While the medium has grown in popularity with filmmakers over the years, and lost favour with audiences along the way, Scorsese’s involvement has indicated a change in the way we approach it, much like James Cameron’s Avatar did in 2009.
Revered auteurs aren’t supposed to use shameless gimmicks to enhance their movies, so when they do, we tend to sit up and take notice. Catching up with the director at the Hugo press conference, Scorsese shed some light on his decision to film the adventure with a third dimension, and talked about working with young actors:
“It is something I’d like to take into my future films. I happen to be a great admirer of it, from when I first saw those view-masters or stereoscopic images, and I was taken into another space. As a child, it tapped into that childlike imagination, and it’s the thing I look for whenever I make a film. That thrill of the imagination has to be there every day, and seeing those first 3D images gave me that feeling.
“If it’s used appropriately for the story, why not? It’s the same as colour, sound or widescreen. For a long period of time, colour was very special and everyone complained about it until they got it right in 1935. This is what we were aspiring to; colour, through the demand of an audience who didn’t grow up on black and white, just became natural.”
On working with young actors Asa Butterfield and Chloe Moretz, he said: “I think that it’s important to make younger people aware of what came before, in every aspect. It’s exciting, if I’m working with young people, mentoring them, I get a lot out of it. I get a kind of
Revered auteurs aren’t supposed to use shameless gimmicks to enhance their movies, so when they do, we tend to sit up and take notice. Catching up with the director at the Hugo press conference, Scorsese shed some light on his decision to film the adventure with a third dimension, and talked about working with young actors:
“It is something I’d like to take into my future films. I happen to be a great admirer of it, from when I first saw those view-masters or stereoscopic images, and I was taken into another space. As a child, it tapped into that childlike imagination, and it’s the thing I look for whenever I make a film. That thrill of the imagination has to be there every day, and seeing those first 3D images gave me that feeling.
“If it’s used appropriately for the story, why not? It’s the same as colour, sound or widescreen. For a long period of time, colour was very special and everyone complained about it until they got it right in 1935. This is what we were aspiring to; colour, through the demand of an audience who didn’t grow up on black and white, just became natural.”
