The Cinematheque

“Hugo [is] an enchantment from Martin Scorsese … It’s serious, beautiful, wise to the absurdity of life and in the embrace of a piercing longing.”

Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

Hugo Cabret, orphaned, friendless, and hunted by the Montparnasse station inspector (his office has a special cell just for abandoned boys!), is also the only reason the clocks in the train station run on time. In this unexpectedly personal children’s film by Martin Scorsese—who himself spent a childhood largely indoors, dreaming of scenarios from behind a window due to serious asthma—Hugo finds himself involved in the family story of bankrupted filmmaker Georges Méliès. Méliès’s bookish goddaughter Isabelle—who frequents a grand bookshop managed by Monsieur Labisse (one of Christopher Lee’s finest late-career roles)—welcomes Hugo into a world where adults and children alike are responsible for the keeping and appreciating of beautiful art. Scorsese, marked forever by his meeting with the filmmaker Michael Powell after the British director’s success had waned—not unlike Hugo meeting Méliès—offers here his most kid-friendly reflection on the dangers and glories of popular appeals to entertainment.

Hugo will be preceded by Harry, a short film created as part of Cinelab 2022 by Silas.

“[In Hugo,] Scorsese creates a hyper-detailed alternate universe, a place where cinema functions as an upsetting force—opening up new possibilities, shifting the status quo, healing old wounds, and bringing out the good in seemingly bad people. It’s hopeful, naïve, and intoxicating.”

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, Cine-File

“Hugo is unlike any other film Martin Scorsese has ever made, and yet possibly the closest to his heart: a big-budget family epic, and in some ways, a mirror of his own life.”

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times