nostalgia in film, for film, is a hollywood staple

Some of the best films that came out last year had a common theme — nostalgia. Not only were these films set in bygone eras, but they shared an expressed yearning for the past, a nostalgia for older films.

Hugo is the ultimate love letter to the cinema, showcasing the work of the father of the movies, Georges Méliès. Director Martin Scorsese has never been more accessible. His affection for the subject matter clearly shows.

The Artist is a silent movie set in the golden age of Hollywood, during the transition from silents to talkies. It radiates charm and viewers can enjoy its nods to Fred and Ginger musicals and classic films like Singin' in the Rain and A Star is Born.

Midnight in Paris takes Owen Wilson to magical eras in the City of Light's past where he can rub shoulders with Ernest Hemingway, Salvador Dali, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald and even the French Impressionists. But Woody Allen is also calling up the magic in classic Hollywood films like  A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and Time After Time, where the hero has an opportunity to trip through time and find romance in the past.

My Week with Marilyn is a movie about the making of a movie. The Muppets is set in the present, but its plot and its entire vibe hearkens back to the Muppet's first movie, which came out in 1979. The Adventures of Tintin is a boy's adventure that evoke film noir. Puss in Boots has its obvious roots in Zorro and other classic movie swashbucklers and Rango uses Hollywood westerns as its inspiration.

Not since the early '70s have so many movies been looking backward. So many films seemed to have an affection for the '30s — and the movies made in that era.

The Sting (1973) wears its love for '30s gangsters movies proudly and also pays homage to silent films with title cards. Depression-era America is also the setting for Peter Bogdonavich's Paper Moon (1973), which calls to mind The Grapes of Wrath. Bogdonavich took another nostalgic turn with Nickelodeon (1976), where he featured the birth of motion pictures.

The Great Gatsby (1974) is about the nostalgia of a past love, and is filmed to look like the classic '30s doomed romances featuring Joan Crawford. Cabaret (1972) is in a slightly more modern era, Weimar Germany, but it calls to mind classic movie musicals as well as war movies filmed in the late '30s, early '40s.

Chinatown (1974) is Roman Polanski's '70s take on film noir, with Jack Nicholson playing the ultimate beleaguered P.I., fascinated and double-crossed by a gorgeous dame (Faye Dunaway), in the long filmic tradition of Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade. Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein (1974) is a true homage to the classic '30s horror films, characters, and actors. It's also still one of the funniest and beautiful-to-look-at moves ever made.

Is it because we are again in a recession that we would rather look back? When Hollywood looks back, it always seems to look back not just to another era, but on itself, its history. But its self-reflexive nature does make for some great films.

hugo is movie magic

The 3D version of Martin Scorsese's Hugo, his adaptation of Brian Selznick's wonderful book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, was probably better than most of the 3D movies out there, but once and for all it convinced me that 3D is just not a necessary moviegoing experience. The fabulous look of Hugo is as much in honor of Selznick's visual tone-poem as it is Scorsese's moving homage to cinematic pioneer Georges Méliès. Méliès was a magician, both off and on screen, and would have fiddled with 3D technology in his time, if he could. But his films were full of imaginative special effects without it. I'm looking forward to going back and seeing Hugo again, but in 2D, so I can concentrate more on the compositions of the scenes than the realistic placement of objects in space. Hugo is the best-looking film Scorsese has created. Never known for his visuals, Scorsese's always been more of a storyteller, but for Hugo he and his production team (cinematographer Robert Richardson and production designer Dante Ferretti) pulled out all the stops.

My 3D rant aside, Scorsese manages to take what is already a great work of art, and improve it in its translation to film. He builds up the character of the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen, in a humorous and surprisingly subtle and touching performance) and adds human dimension to all of the characters, which were a bit thin on the page. He also makes the Gare Montparnasse itself come alive as a character. Hugo the film is related to its original source, but transcends it, much like The Wizard of Oz.

The mostly British cast features young actors Asa Butterfield as Hugo and Chloë Grace Moretz as Isabelle. They are real kids, full of fun and adventure as they try to puzzle out why Isabelle's guardian, Papa Georges (Ben Kingsley), seems so disturbed by Hugo's notebook, which once belonged to his deceased father (Jude Law). The notebook contains a drawing of an automaton that should suggest the film Metropolis to many in the audience. Almost all of the secrets and discoveries in Hugo lead back to the magic of filmmaking. Hugo shares his love of movies with Isabelle, introducing her to the films of Harold Lloyd (especially Safety Last! ), Charlie Chaplin, and Buster Keaton. Scorsese and his make-up artists also pull some movie magic, depicting Kingsley and wife Mama Jeanne (Helen McCrory) in the past and present, effortlessly going from youthful to aged and back again. Other residents of the train station in small but important parts are played by Christopher Lee, Emily Mortimer, Frances de la Tour, Richard Griffiths, and Ray Winstone.

Scorcese has taken his natural exuberance for movies and brought it both emotionally and visually to Hugo. He allows himself a small cameo appearance, a la Alfred Hitchcock, but his real stand-in is played by Michael Stuhlbarg (Boardwalk Empire), as Rene Tabard, Méliès biographer, fan boy and film enthusiast.

Not only will a whole new generation discover the work of Méliès — the creation of some of his most classic films are reproduced here, in a direct translation of wonder — but they may discover Scorsese as well. Scorsese understands that movie magic doesn't come from just the viewing of a single film, but the history of it, the catalogue of the auteur, the sheer enthusiasm for the medium. Hugo is pure magic.