is Martin Scorsese’s film inspired by a true story?

Hugo Cabret is a film directed by Martin Scorsese released in 2011. Worn by Asa Butterfield (Sex Education), Jude Law (The Holiday), Sir Ben Kingsley (Gandhi) and Chloe Grace Moretz (Kick-ass), it plunges the viewer into Paris in the 1930s, to follow the story of a young orphan who lives in hiding in a train station, until the day he meets George Méliès, creator of the seventh art.

This is the adaptation of the children’s novel The invention of Hugo Cabretwritten by Brian Selznick. Overall, therefore, the plot is completely fictitious: the character of Hugo Cabret does not exist, and there was no boy who maintained the clocks and who lived in hiding in the middle of Montparnasse station in the 1930s.

However, everything is not fiction in Martin Scorsese’s film since it tells the story of a very real man: Georges Méliès. This illusionist from the end of the 19th century is considered one of the first cinema directors, after he discovered the cinematography of the Lumières brothers. Although he did not invent the technique, he is considered the inventor of cinematographic art: using magician techniques, he invented the first special effects (dissolves, enlargements and reductions, etc.), and developed what we would call editing or storyboards, before creating the first film studio in Montreuil.

Overall, Hugo Cabret truthfully transcribes the main elements of the real life of George Méliès (with the exception of the entire intrigue surrounding the meeting with the young orphan, who never existed). Mention is also made of films directed by George Méliès, such as the very famous Journey to the Moon. Martin Scorsese’s film, however, makes omissions, by not mentioning the filmmaker’s children, his brother or his first wife Eugénie.

Synopsis – Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is only 13 years old when he loses his father (Jude Law), watchmaker by trade. Homeless, the young boy lives in a train station and tries to finish a job started by his father: repairing a mechanical automaton. While trying to steal food, Hugo is caught in the act by Georges Méliès (Sir Ben Kingsley) who confiscates Hugo’s sketchbook. A story of friendship then begins with this talented filmmaker who will be forgotten and a young girl he takes care of.