The Hugo Movie Companion

Because The Invention of Hugo Cabret was in such a format that made its pages like film slides, it follows that The Hugo Movie Companion, which is also written by author Brian Selznick, isn't in the typical movie companion format. It is not a slender, large paperback; it's regular book-size. It's in fact around the same size as the book the movie is based on, just much thinner with around 250 pages. 

The pages also aren't glossy. While this was odd at first for the pictures, it does mean no fingerprints and also enhances the idea that you're reading a book--not just looking through a companion to a movie. Brian Selznick also divided the book up a little differently than most companions do. His format emphasizes storytelling and storytellers, giving as many people as possible a mini chapter within the larger chapters. Whereas so many movie companions have you pausing what you're reading and marking your place while you look at a picture or read a box that breaks up the text, this book is much more reader friendly. A page usually ends with the end of a sentence, so you're free to look at everything individually without having to flip back and forth. This may seem like a minor detail, but it always bothers me with other movie companions.

Some of the pictures are illustrations from the book, along with a comparison of the corresponding scenes from the movie. There are also behind the scenes and historical pictures, as well as a page or two of the script. One of the images I found most fascinating was of the dialogue coach's notes about how to pronounce the dialogue with an accent. I've always seen dialogue coaches in movie credits, but I've never heard anyone explain how exactly they do their work.

This book tells not just how the movie Hugo was made, but also where all the people who worked on it drew their inspiration from. It goes into great detail without becoming overly technical. With all the pictures it's a short read. While The Invention of Hugo Cabret is like a film, this movie companion connects film back to books.

The Hugo Movie Companion: A Behind the Scenes Look at How a Beloved Book Became a Major Motion Picture

The Island on Bird Street

Though the comparison is far from exact, the movie that The Island on Bird Street most reminded me of was Hugo. Both feature a young boy as protagonist, one who is left alone in a secluded and potentially hostile environment yet who manages to survive and to maintain hope.

But The Island on Bird Street is more stark than Hugo; it has less of the flowery, magical imagination (though it does feature some; it's just different) and more of the brutality of war. This has to do with its setting: no French train station here, but rather a WWII-Era ghetto in Poland. Though Hugo has some dialogue-free scenes, it's talkative compared with The Island on Bird Street, which is most often quite quiet and what most people would call slow (I didn't find it slow in at all a bad way--but I know that some people need a different kind of pace). As I said, it doesn't gloss over war's cruelties, yet Alex tries to keep himself positive, entertaining himself with Robinson Crusoe (which is, of course, no accidental book choice) and his pet mouse and never giving up hope that his father will return.

Spoilers below the jump.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

A month or two ago, I posted my particularly delirious thoughts after watching the movie Hugo; click here to read that post. Today I decided to reward myself for finishing one of my writing assignments by finally reading the book to inspire the movie (I didn't have any other plans for the evening, didn't want to do more work, and didn't really want to be a slug and watch Netflix/YouTube for the whole night).

The book's full title is The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and its author is Brian Selznick, and it is a brilliant book. Just wonderful. I mentioned in my other post the similarities with A Little Princess and Oliver Twist. Let me add another fictional character Hugo now reminds me of: Bran from Kaleb Nation's Bran Hambric series. That connection mainly comes from the combination of orphanhood with a tendency for drawing.

As I moved through the opening pages, I was amazed at how well the movie captured many of the images and the overall tone of the book. They treated the adaptation well and drew from what makes this book unique.

What makes it unique is also what makes it so expensive; the list price is twenty-five dollars, although Amazon sells it for less, of course. That's because about half of the five hundred or so pages are pictures. But it isn't quite like a graphic novel or a picture book. It is primarily a novel, even if one that even my slowness was able to read in three hours. The pictures act like film slides. This is why it works that some of them don't have the greatest detail (they still convey what matters, though): it's better if you don't move through them too slowly, as you would if you were taking in many small details. Your hands become the projector that moves the slides that compose the story. It's really rather thrilling, and it's also amazing that film can be not just a subject but a theme of this book. I particularly love the way that, like in the movie, this artistic theme is paired along with mechanics.

This book is such a success. It isn't overstated; it isn't understated--it's real. It's emotion, thought, art, interaction, history, time, and place all expressed in between two covers.

Struck by Hugo

I'm just going a little insane here, so what better way to recover than to blog?

Less than an hour ago, I finished watching Hugo. Its trailer had made it seem to be a nice movie that I might enjoy watching, but I never got the chance to while it was in theatres. Then it was so popular at the Oscars, so I quickly moved it to the very top of my Netflix queue to try and get it before everyone else did. During my break from schoolwork, I slipped the DVD into my laptop . . . and I emerged two hours later. I have somewhat succeeded in occupying my mind since then with some delicious potatoes, but when I tried to settle into some more reading (I'm being forced to read Pride and Prejudice again), I just couldn't. There are some movies that take a little time to recover from, and Hugo was one of those for me.

I feel like this is also one of those movies (like Remember Me, although for different reasons) that the less you know going in, the better. You have to just sit and let it take you in and let it flow.

The first bits have cinematography to delight your eyes and charm to delight your mind. It seems an odd comparison, but certain sections reminded me of Amelie--in a more, er, innocent way, I guess you could say. The character of Hugo is wonderful . . . maybe something like how Oliver Twist would have been to his original audience (before he became such an archetypal character, I mean). Besides Amelie and Oliver, Hugo reminds me slightly of Sarah (from A Little Princess); his circumstances are not completely opposite to hers, either.

The other characters are nice, as well, and the story unfolds with a balance of suspense (that word just doesn't sound right . . . ) and heart (that doesn't seem like the best word, either). It's a lovely movie. I do feel that something in it could have been taken just slightly to a higher level; just some tweaking I think could have made it into an absolutely brilliant movie. As it was, I felt like it maybe could benefit from that extra nudge.

Yet this was a delightful movie, one I won't be forgetting quickly. Its use of scene makes it both beautiful and thoughtful. Yes, it definitely has touches from the three stories I mentioned, which is funny considering how much thought I have been giving to A Little Princess lately: I caught sight of the leather-bound Barnes & Noble edition of that book and have been coveting it since, which means that I have also been going over how wonderful I think that book is--it is innocent, imaginative, tender, and heartbreaking. These are traits that Hugo shares.

My conclusion: oh, dear, I just added two more books to my Amazon wish list (the movie companion is the second). As if I didn't have enough to read without also having twenty books waiting to be bought.

(And I realize that this was probably an even more rambling post than usual--remember, I did say that I wrote it to cure my temporary insanity. I believe it worked: I should be able to focus on other things now. Also note that this rambling is why I usually give at least twenty four hours before commenting on things.)