“We love Scorsese, yes, yes we do!”

(Picture source: GK Films)

Of all the movie adaptations I’ve seen and reviewed on this blog, this is by far the best one yet. It is the best not because the source material was essentially a picture book, it’s more due to the fact that both screenwriter John Logan and director Martin Scorsese have managed to elevate a simple story into an enchanting tale that captures the magic of movies and why we all worship at its altar. Scorsese even manages to sneak in a little lesson on early cinema history.

Like ornaments on a Christmas tree, the book essentially serves as a spine Logan uses to hang the stories of new characters he’s created just for this two-hour adaptation. And they work out pretty well. The surprise is that these are not cold bodies created to fill the frame but fleshed-out characters who are looking for a way home, whatever home means for each of them.

I love this movie because it lovingly reminds us why we are moviegoers. To escape, yes, most certainly. Movies inspire us and heal us from the wounds of daily living. At one point in the movie, Méliès says movies are where dreams are made. Movie studios often forget we need to root for the characters onscreen because we want to be like them or see something of ourselves in these characters. I don’t know about you but I can’t relate to my heroes if killing and blowing things up are their only motivations. Instead, I’d like to think most of us are looking for the meaning behind the untidiness that life creates in its wake. Scorsese understands this and I think that’s why he’s such a successful and respected filmmaker. While many others try to cram as many things into a frame (yeah James Cameron, Michael Bay, I’m looking at you guys), Scorsese subtracts as much as he can, sometimes leaving us with only a big talking head (and Sacha Baron Cohen’s big nose). I’ve never seen 3D shot this way and I hope more directors will follow his lead. I also love how he uses a shallow depth of field to draw the audience into the 3D world he’s created, and the gold, browns, and blues hues that dominate every frame. Not only is this movie pretty to look at, the sound effects are wonderful it makes me think I’m in a clock.

There were definitely some restless people in the theatre with me. If you had read the book beforehand, you would just sit back and enjoy the meandering ways the story seems to take to reach the end. But pre-reading is not a prerequisite. I recognized some pictures from the book but even they get retouched by the Scorsese.

The best part though is seeing Méliès footage on the big screen. A huge wave of nostalgia swept over me as scenes from The Trip to the Moon and his other iconic films were shown, no doubt made even more powerful by the 3D effect. Scorsese also showed what it would have been like to shoot a Méliès scene, and for a cinephile like myself who love behind-the-scene stuff just as much as movies, it was pure heaven.

Rating: If all history classes were this enjoyable, I would never fall asleep in school ever again. You must watch this movie in 3D as it was created to be seen and enjoyed this way.