The Montages of Hugo

The Evolution of Film Making (LHUM 1201)

Troy Yauk
Troy Yauk
Nov 5 · 6 min read

Continuity Editing vs. Montage

When looking at the editing of film, there are two major styles that are often used. These are continuity editing and montage editing. Continuity editing is the most common style of editing in modern Hollywood. It is used to maintain continues and clear-cut editing. This is used to hide itself. If achieved, continuity editing blends in seamlessly and goes unnoticed. The five major rules of continuity editing are the establishing/re-establishing shot, matching eye-line and matching action, shot/reverse shot, the 180-degree rule, and the 30-degree rule (used to avoid jump cuts). The montage was developed by Soviet film makers.

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The montage is a formalist style of editing. Soviet film maker Sergei Eisenstein developed a variety of editing techniques. The five major montage methods Eisenstein developed were Metric, Rhythmic, Tonal, Over tonal, and Intellectual Montages. While continuity editing hides itself, montages call attention to itself.

Montages typically go against all major rules that make up continuity editing. The meaning is primarily created through the relations between shots and not by a single shot.

Hugo (2011)

Hugo was a 2011 film directed by Martin Scorsese and based on the novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret written by Brian Selznick. The film tells the story of Hugo Cabret, a young boy in Paris, France in the 1930’s. After the tragic loss of his father followed by his uncle, Hugo is orphaned living alone in the Paris train station, managing all the clocks in the station. Through a series of mishaps, Hugo comes in contact with Papa Georges, a man who works at a small toy store, located in the train station. Shortly afterwards, Hugo learns that Papa Georges is actually the renowned film maker George Méliès, and that they both have a strong intimate connection to Hugo’s automaton which they learn was designed and built by Méliès. The film was based on the novel which was released in 2007 to great acclaim. The novel was then adapted to the major motion picture Hugo in 2011 by renowned director Martin Scorsese. The film was both publicly and critically acclaimed being nominated for ten academy awards including best picture and winning five including best cinematography.

George Méliès

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One of the films central characters is George Méliès, who is known as one of the most influential film makers in history. Méliès is a key example of formalist film making. Formalism is often compared to abstract art. It is the idea of creating something abstract and away from reality as much as possible. Saying this, it is very clear that Scorsese wanted to feature this style of film making in Hugo as a way to pay homage to one of the great film makers of the twentieth century. Having said that, this is a modern Hollywood film and consists of a decent amount of realism as well. The realism is quite apparent in the continuity style editing of the film. There are several montages presented in the film as well, and these montages create a very strong example of the style of formalism Méliès experimented with.

The Film Library Montage

One of the most striking montages in the film, is the film library sequence. In this sequence, Hugo and Isabelle are in the train station library where they are reading a book on the first films ever made. As they read, the film cuts back and forth between them reading and clips of the old films that they are reading about. This sequence is not an example of continuity editing since looking at this sequence alone, there is no plot, other than just two children sitting in a room reading a book. There also is no cause and effect in this sequence. The content that the viewer see’s is not connected to the shots that were presented earlier. With that it is clear that this is an example of a montage. This sequence can be looked at as both a rhythmic and intellectual montage. A rhythmic montage is formed out of movements within the shots. It considers the content within the images and makes the “rhyme.” In this scene, the cuts between each shot has a certain flow and timing that is following along with the score that is being played in the background.

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An intellectual montage creates concepts by juxtaposing images which are not related in terms of time and space, or even in meaning, but together create a complex theme or idea. In this sequence there is a shot that begins on an old painting of an angel in the stars who’s pointing finger is created a stream of light pointed onto earth. As the camera pans of this painting, the stream of light turns into the light coming from a film projector that is aimed at a movie screen. This seems to be a metaphor for film being a complex work of art that is connected both to an ancient relationship with God. This is also an interesting version of an artistic timeline. The shot starts on a painting which is the oldest form of art which has existed as long as humans have. The shot than transitions and ends on a film screening which in many ways is the newest mainstream art form to be introduced to the world. This is a clever way of showing where art started and where it has come up to this point.

George Méliès: A Tribute

In one of the final moments of the film, there is a sequence which tributes the work of George Méliès. This sequence cuts between various clips of Méliès work over the years. In this scene, the viewer sees actual real footage of Méliès work rather than recreated scenes as shown previously in the film. This is not an example of continuity editing since the sequence alone has no plot, and is instead just an audience watching clips from various films. This sequence also has no context or cause and effect since all that is being viewed are various different clips from various different films. This is a key example of a montage. This sequence consists of many rhythmic montage aspects as well as some tonal aspects. There is a clear rhythm to all the shots since they play a nice rhyming flow with each other. They are all pretty similar in length and they each play a strong timing component that flows nicely with the score being played to accompany the scenes.

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A tonal montage is to edit on the basis of the emotional tone. The image where each image in the sequence shares the same emotional quality. The mood has to be foregrounded, and the sequence has to be based on a mood shared by each image. In this sequence while each shot comes from a variety of different films, they are cut together in a way that they each share a similar feeling and a similar tone. Scorsese moves from a tone of adventure and excitement, to a tone of nostalgia and beauty. Putting this sequence near the end of the film allows the audience to share these feelings and emotions with the characters, since the audience has just watch two hours of character development, and have learned to grow and appreciate the characters. This way although the audience may not have the same intimate connection to the material they are viewing, they can still share in the experience with the relationship they have with the characters in this film.

In Conclusion

In short, Hugo is one of the most influential and inspiring look backs on the history of cinema, from where it started to where it has come. It pays a strong homage to George Méliès inspiring formalist work, and shows how his work inspired generations of film makers such as Martin Scorsese. It is a modern masterpiece from modern Hollywood.

Mast, Gerald, and Bruce F. Kawin. A Short History of the Movies. Pearson, 2012.

Scorsese, Martin. Hugo. Paramount Pictures, 2011.

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