Hugo: bringing the book to the screen in pictures | Children's books

 Posted on July 21, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  682 words  |  Jenniffer Sheldon

Hugo: bringing the book to the screen

A magical illustrated story by Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, inspired Martin Scorsese's first family film, which has been nominated for nine Baftas and 11 Oscars. Here are images from both

Read the exclusive Observer interview with Brian Selznick

Sat 11 Feb 2012 19.05 EST First published on Sat 11 Feb 2012 19.05 EST

  • Scorsese's first excursion into what the Americans call 'family cinema' is the adventure of a lone child in a tradition as established as Oliver Twist.

  • Brian Selznick, author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret: 'What interests me about clocks is that everything is hand-made, and yet to the person looking at the clock, something magical is happening that cannot be explained unless you are the clockmaker.'

  • Brian Selznick: 'The camera movements are based on my drawings, but bigger, grander and more operatic than anything I could have imagined.'

  • Martin Scorsese's film Hugo: Jude Law as Hugo's father and Asa Butterfield as the boy.

  • Hugo's father leaves behind a notebook. Brian Selznick says: 'I think that, however happy a family, every intelligent child thinks: "How did I come to be born to these parents?"'

  • The automaton: Scorsese's film is – for all its state-of-the-art 3D and its director's masterful eye – closer to, and more respectful of, the work on paper than any adaptation that comes to mind.

  • The orphaned boy attempts to repair the mysterious automaton which is his father's legacy.

  • Brian Selznick: 'I had to work from the question: why is a 12-year-old going through the trash after a fire at a museum looking for a broken machine?'

  • Brian Selznick: 'My drawings are 3in x 5in, and magnified.'

  • Brian Selznick: 'I want to get the feeling right. If it's moving through tunnels, I ask myself, what is it like to move through tunnels?'

  • Asa Butterfield as Hugo and Sacha Baron Cohen as the Montparnasse station inspector.

  • Hugo's quest brings him to another orphan, Isabelle.

  • Asa Butterfield with Chloë Grace Moretz as Isabelle.

  • The drawings in The Invention of Hugo Cabret are achieved by painstaking cross-hatching.

  • Isabelle lives in the care of an old man who keeps the station's toyshop.

  • Asa Butterfield with Sir Ben Kingsley as toy seller Papa Georges, a former conjuror and magician.

  • Sad Papa Georges in his Montparnasse toyshop.

  • Sir Ben Kingsley as Papa Georges in his colourful shop. There is a secret to Georges's past that waits to be revealed.

  • Brian Selznick: 'People use computers more and more, which erase the hand of the artist – and I wanted to do something in which you see the hand of the artist.'

  • The drawing made by the automaton. Brian Selznick says: 'I began to think about the connections between clock-making, automata and magic – and the magic of film that was also hand-made.'
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