In “Hugo” (2011)—a family film directed by Martin Scorsese, and adapted by John Logan from Brian Selznick’s book The Invention of Hugo Cabret—movies and dreams are synonymous. Remembering visits to the theater with his deceased father, Hugo (Asa Butterfield) says: “He said it was like seeing his dreams in the middle of the day.” Later, when another character recalls a childhood visit to a movie set, we see the director welcome him with these words: “If you’ve ever wondered where your dreams come from, you look around. This is where they’re made.”
Comparing movies to dreams is nothing new, of course. Hollywood has long been known as “the Dream Factory.” But what is a dream? Is it merely a fantasy, an escape—a dancing phantom projected briefly for our amusement, then vanishing without leaving a mark? Sometimes. But dreams also have power. They inspire us to lift our eyes, to reach higher, to imagine worlds beyond the one we can touch and see. Dreams give us a sense of purpose, enrich our lives with meaning. Movies have that power, too.
Martin Scorsese is well-acquainted with the power of dreams, especially the ones that flicker across our screens. Not only has he made some of the greatest films of all time, but he also created the Film Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to film preservation and education. In “Hugo,” Scorsese’s only family-friendly feature to date, he reflects on how dreams give meaning to our lives and help us persevere through life’s hardships.
“Hugo” is set in 1931, largely in Paris’ grand Montparnasse train station. Hugo, a 12-year-old boy, lives in the walls and makes sure the station’s many clocks run properly. His only “friend” is a metal automaton that he is constantly trying to make work—his last remaining link to his father (Jude Law), who died several years prior. When a bitter toymaker, Georges (Ben Kingsley), catches Hugo stealing clockwork pieces from his shop, he compels him to work in the shop to pay off his debt. Hugo befriends Georges’ goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz), and together they attempt to fix the automaton. In the process they uncover a painful secret about Georges and embark on an even greater quest: to raise his shattered dreams from the dead.
“A broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn’t able to do what it was meant to do,” Hugo tells Isabelle. “Maybe it’s the same with people. If you lose your purpose… it’s like you’re broken.” Hugo sees himself as one of those broken people, since the death of his father. Georges is one, too. The children discover that he was once the passionate and inventive filmmaker Georges Méliès (an important figure in the early history of cinema whose real-life story inspired Selznick’s book). Georges abandoned his work after World War I, his fantastical visions out of step with the grim reality that the returning soldiers had seen. “The world had no time for magic tricks and movie shows,” he laments.
You have likely heard similar arguments: that movies are a lower (“popular”) artform, good for distraction but little more. In a world of very real suffering and hardship, movies seem frivolous, if not irresponsible. But if we only stare into life’s shadows, we risk sinking into despair. Dreams can liberate us from fatalism and help us to imagine a new world.
Maybe that sounds grandiose, but Pope Pius XII made a similar argument in two apostolic exhortations that he delivered to representatives of the film industry in 1955. “The ideal film is allowed to lead the weary and jaded spirit to the thresholds of the world of illusion, so that it may enjoy a brief respite from the pressure of real existence,” he writes, before comparing it to the experience of dreaming. While acknowledging the power of film for moral instruction, Pius did not see this as its only purpose, noting that movies have value simply by making the burden of living a little lighter. Following a good movie, he writes, a spectator should leave the theater “more light-hearted, relaxed, and better within himself, than he entered.”
This is what Hugo knows, and what Georges has to remember: In a broken world, dreams aren’t frivolous. In fact, there’s nothing more important: Dreams are what give us the strength to get through the day, the hope to believe in a better tomorrow. They even have the power to heal what is broken.
“Hugo” is streaming on Showtime and the Hoopla and Kanopy apps (available through your local library).
