4. Hugo
With Hugo, director Martin Scorsese uses modern cinematic technology to pay tribute and give life to the magical roots of film history. In doing so he has created what exists as his most personal film. You can feel his adoration for filmmaking in every frame of this fantastical odyssey. The attention to detail is spectacular. The cinematography, art direction, and costume design all work in tandem to flesh out the dense and gorgeous whimsicality of a Paris train station where the majority of Hugo’s story unfolds. Howard Shore’s score also adds to the film’s fairytale aesthetic. Hugo also boasts the single best use of 3D that I’ve seen in film, making the shots of snowfall and steaming pipes all the more engrossing. All of theseelements operate together in a way that reflects the clockwork and machinery so thematically inherent in the film. Hugo is ultimately about finding one’s purpose and how one can use any fashion of artist expression, be it filmmaking, magic, or literature, to operate in the world around them.
(Source: thenoirpirate)
