The discovery of Hugo Cabret

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The discovery of Hugo Cabret ( English The Invention of Hugo Cabret ) is a "novel in words and pictures" for young people, which was written and illustrated by Brian Selznick . It was published in 2007 by Scholastic Press and in 2008 in the German translation by Uwe-Michael Gutzschhahn by cbj . It deals with the life of the film pioneer Georges Méliès and can be seen as an homage to the young film .

action

The action takes place in Paris in 1931. The orphan boy Hugo lives in the walls of a Paris train station and, as a representative of his hated foster uncle Claude, the actual incumbent, keeps the station's immense clock system in operation, because Claude neglects it due to his alcohol addiction. To avoid the orphanage, especially when the death of his foster uncle is discovered, he has to escape the station guard, a war invalid, again and again - his precise knowledge of the hidden corridors of the huge station complex helps him.

At the same time, he tries to repair a human-like machine that consists “entirely of clockworks and other fine mechanical parts”. His father, a watchmaker, had found this wind-up automaton in the attic of a museum some time before it was killed in a fire. Hugo now believes that the machine contains a secret message from his father.

Hugo steals the spare parts for the repairs from old Papa Georges, who runs a toy stand in the train station. When he catches him one day, their lives are merged in a series of revelations. Together with Isabelle, Papa Georges' stepdaughter, Hugo finds out that Georges is really the film pioneer Georges Méliès . He built the machine himself years ago; the message he finally reveals is a drawing from Méliès' black and white film The Journey to the Moon .

They discover that Papa Georges is trying to escape from his past and they want to help him. With the help of the young film student Etienne, they contact Professor René Tabard, an admirer of Méliès' work. He shows them The Journey to the Moon . Faced with his own past, Papa Georges recognizes the value of his films again.

Hugo has to steal something in the train station in order to be able to eat and is caught doing it. The station supervisor rescues him after an exciting chase from an approaching train. When Hugo comes to, he sees Papa Georges and gives him the machine back. Papa Georges takes Hugo in, and the French Film Academy honors him as a movie legend in a public event.

Visual design

The book contains more than 150 double-sided white-black - Illustrations . Most of these are drawings by the author Brian Selznick, but there are also drawings by Georges Méliès and stills from early films. The pictures are an integral part of the story. In interviews, Selznick stated that he first wrote the story as text and then replaced as many passages as possible with pictures.

Several series of images are striking, in which individual actions are divided into a whole series of images. The series of images imitate the essence of the film and typical cinematic stylistic devices such as zoom , pan or film montage . The book is more than a graphic novel, believes the reviewer John Schwartz in the New York Times, it is more of a silent film on paper.

Awards

  • 2007 Quill Award, Category Children's Chapter / Middle Grade
  • 2008 Caldecott Medal

Text output

filming

Martin Scorsese acquired the film rights in 2007 and won John Logan as screenwriter. Filming began in London in 2010 , and the film opened in the United States in 2011. The film was released in cinemas in German-speaking countries on February 9, 2012.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Interview by Adolescent Literacy with Brian Selznick
  2. ^ John Schwartz: The Invention of Hugo Cabret . In: New York Times Book Review . March 11, 2007 (PDF; 314 kB)
  3. ^ Brian Selznick's author page at Scholastic Press

Web links