![]() This particular automaton sits at a desk with a pen in hand, prepared to write. ![]() (Think of it as a larger, more complex music box.) The Draughtsman-WriterĪll this talk of automata but how does this relate to Hugo again? The main character in the film, the orphaned Hugo, is given an old, broken-down automaton by his late father. Each mechanism controls a part of the swan’s movement as it turns its head side to side, “sees” a fish in the glass river below, and bends its head to catch and swallow the fish – all while playing music. The Silver Swan, designed by John Joseph Merlin in the 18th century, contains three separate clockwork mechanisms. That system was later replaced with clockwork driven devices. Leonardo da Vinci also dabbled in automata, including a knight robot that could sit, stand, and raise its visor.Įarly automata, like the cart and knight robot, run on a system of pulleys and cables. Hero, a Greek mathematician and engineer, designed several automata, including a programmable three-wheeled cart. The machines became popular in the 18th century, but the earliest automaton dates back to 60 AD. Autonomous AutomataĪutomata are self-operating machines with a long, and strange, history. ![]() But what about Hugo, the Martin Scorsese–directed film about an orphan living in a Paris train station in the 1930s? The 3-D adventure offers a glimpse into some engineering history with the help of an automaton. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker, while Arthur Christmas is a high-tech take on Santa Claus (so will we see engineer elves?). The Muppets features the return of Muppet scientists (and CERN employees) Dr. ![]() The Thanksgiving lineup is sure to bring laughs and stunning animation but it also offers moviegoers a little science. But the character of Hugo is a very big appreciator of movies, and of their happy endings too, and in this particular story his hope is rewarded.Everyone knows Thanksgiving is all about the movies, and this year theaters are offering up three family-friendly films: The Muppets, Arthur Christmas, and Hugo. Of course, Hugo is a movie itself, and one packed with meta-criticism and film history at that. Although one character, after having lost all hope for humanity during the Great War, tells Hugo bitterly that “happy endings only happen in the movies”, Hugo’s own experience proves him wrong. And to top it off, Isabella herself fits into the place of the missing piece in Hugo’s life. In fact, the story seems to oppose its modernist setting when Hugo miraculously finds the missing piece of his automaton in the possession of his new friend Isabella ( Chloë Grace Moretz ). The movie does not spiral into an existentialist lament of being broken with no hope of healing, however. Similarly, Hugo has been broken by the years, and is missing the essential piece of his life that was his father. It is broken, but Hugo and his father had almost fixed it-the only piece remaining was a heart shaped key. The automaton on which he is working is the last relic of the life he lived before his father (Jude Law) died. It is a stunning visual and aural effect that captures the ceaseless motion of his world. ![]() He lives behind the walls of a train station, which are alive with the mechanical motion of spinning gears, swinging pendulums and the ceaseless ticking of clocks. Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is the protagonist, whose orphaned life is analogous to the dismantled automaton he is trying to repair. Although it is not what would be typically classified as science fiction, Martin Scorsese’s 2011 film Hugo uses a machine as its central metaphor to convey themes very intimate to humanity. ![]()
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