Sunday, March 11, 2012

this was so cool in 3D!
Scorcese's recreation of the famous train wreck at the Gare Montparnasse
in Hugo

6 comments:

Engineer of Knowledge said...

Hello Microdot,
I saw Hugo this past November and the scene of the little boy sitting on the face of the clock over looking Paris at night illumined in all of its beauty and glory, with the Effie Tower about 2/3rds of the distance back within that scene; it was at this point that I though, “now here is the true value that 3D brings to this art medium.”

microdot said...

It was a truly wonderful film. I had been so interested in Melies work. I have posted a few of his films on this blog, but thenthis movie...interesting that the some of the best films this year are either frtench or about France...Midnight in Paris....Hugo, which I agree was the best use of 3d film making I have evr seen. Not a second of waisted gratuitous effect. It only made made magic. Hugo is interesting because it is a homage to the history of film and it's magic. The other film of course is The Artist...the idea of fim and the history of the media is as important as the plot. Yes it takes place in Hollywood, but the writing and production and the actors are French.
The team of Dujardin and Hazanaviius have made quite a few inventively entertaining movies here in France. We just saw their James Bond Spoofs, with Dujardin as agent 0SS 117...really stylish spoofs of the genre...too bad they are in French. The sme composer did the James Bond Style music for the OSS 117 films as for The Artist!

Engineer of Knowledge said...

Microdot,
Oh yes, I just watched Midnight in Paris Friday night. I loved the “Time Warp” aspect where Owen Wilson’s character met, spoke, interacted with those referred to the generation who came of age during World War I. At this time Paris was the cultural capital of the western world. Many of that generation who considered themselves musicians, writers, and artists ended up living in Paris during the 20s and 30s. They came from the United States, from the United Kingdom, and from Canada. The term coined by Gertrude Stein saying that they were all a “Generation Perdue” (a lost generation). It quickly became a name for these authors after Ernest Hemingway mentioned it in the epigraph for “The Sun Also Rises.”

The list of the Arts’ greatest of the time such as the great jazz singer Josephine Baker and composer Cole Porter, writers like Samuel Beckett, Djuna Barnes, Gertrude Stine, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Painters like Salvador Daili, Pablo Picasso, Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulous-Lautrec, Amedeo Modigliani, and Vincent Van Gogh. Man what a time it must have been to live in but of course no one knew how much of an influence this group would have had on the art world in the long term. A prefect example of a “Should-A, Would-A, Could-A.”

There was another group sometimes called the "Merlin Juveniles" (the name given them by Samuel Beckett, who worked with them), which included Alexander Trocchi, Christopher Logue, Patrick Bowles, and Richard Seavers.

microdot said...

Another connection...Josephine Baker and the great writer, Georges Simenon...Simenon is perhaps my favorite all time authors. He claimed that his first serious affair when he came to Paris from Liege was with Baker when he was perhaps 20 years old. Simenon of course wrote the Maigret series...but he was the most prolific author in Western literature...over 1000 titles....and what a life!

J.O.B. said...

Dottie- Holy shit! That scene was a recreation? My daughter and I loved the movie.

microdot said...

J.O.B. I really loved Hugo! There are so many of Melie's films on YouTube now! Including some of the amazing hand colored work. Too bad there was so much stiff competition for the Oscar this year, because, Scorcese created one of the most uniquely poetic and visually stunning films ever made. True Magic!