{"id":676,"date":"2011-12-16T17:49:25","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T17:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/?p=676"},"modified":"2011-12-16T17:52:24","modified_gmt":"2011-12-16T17:52:24","slug":"glen-husers-movie-and-book-picks-for-december-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/2011\/12\/16\/glen-husers-movie-and-book-picks-for-december-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Glen Huser’s Movie and Book Picks for December, 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>My Book Pick: Star Mother’s Youngest Child<\/h1>\n

My book pick for this December is my favourite Christmas book \u2013 one I have read regularly over the years at Christmas to school children and members of my own family. It is Star Mother\u2019s Youngest Child<\/em> (Houghton Mifflin, 1975) with text by Louise Moeri and illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman. I first came across the book when I was reviewing children\u2019s literature for the Learning Resources department of Edmonton Public Schools \u2013 and I immediately bought a copy for myself as well as ordering it for the school libraries where I was working. That was 35 years ago.<\/p>\n

Moeri\u2019s text presents us with the tale of a grumpy, reclusive old woman whose general displeasure with the world, now that her family is gone and the villagers nearby have forgotten her, heightens at Christmas time. \u201cJust once,\u201d she mutters, \u201cI\u2019d like to have a real Christmas, with a Christmas tree, and presents, and candles lit, and music, and a feast\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Up in the heavens, Star Mother, who has been working madly to get the night sky tidy and beautiful for Christmas Eve, scolds her youngest child who is underfoot. But she stops and listens when he begs \u2013 pointing to the earth below —\u00a0 to \u201cjust once\u2026celebrate Christmas like they do down there!\u201d<\/p>\n

As you might guess, Star Mother makes arrangements and her youngest child lands on the grumpy old woman\u2019s doorstep. As he demands all of the pleasures of a Christmas day, the old woman grudgingly sets up and decorates a Christmas tree, prepares a special dinner, and even wraps a gift for him \u2013 a prized brooch she was saving to adorn her burial outfit. And, in the end, Star Mother\u2019s Youngest Child has a special gift for her too (which I\u2019ll leave for you to discover).<\/p>\n

A simple story, but Moeri\u2019s telling of it is filled with language that has been polished to the high sheen of a Christmas tree bauble. It reads aloud beautifully \u2013 especially if you care to work up a particularly grumpy voice for the old woman. For those who want to have the small volume in hand, there is the added pleasure of accessing Trina Schart Hyman\u2019s black-and-white illustrations, detailed and expressive. Hyman is best known for her award-winning illustrations for picture books such as St. George and the Dragon<\/em>, but the work she did here is something I hold close to my heart for its humour and humanity. \u00a0In my mind they are part and parcel of the literary package, just as as John Leech\u2019s original illustrations are for Dickens\u2019 A Christmas Carol.<\/em><\/p>\n

When I first discovered Star Mother\u2019s Youngest Child,<\/em> I shared my enthusiasm for the book with one of my best friends, David Twigge, who worked as a children\u2019s librarian in Burnaby, BC. He too fell in love with it, and revisited it from year to year.<\/p>\n

In the conclusion of Moeri\u2019s narrative, a very tired Youngest Child trudges home to Star Mother and when she asks him to tell her about his adventure, he sleepily yawns and whispers, \u201cIt was enough.\u201d David, who always fashioned his own Christmas cards, sent me a linocut of this scene and quoted these closing lines in the last Christmas card I received from him before he died from AIDS in 1994. I like to think his visit to Earth was as satisfying as Star Mother\u2019s Youngest Child\u2019s \u2013 that \u201cit was enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

My Movie Pick: Hugo\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

My movie pick for December is the new 3D picture Hugo<\/em> which I went to see twice last week. I was so enthralled on a first viewing that I was compelled to return and see the film two days later. A second look allowed me to savour more fully the absolutely amazing digital effects created by a team of artists that \u2013 if you read the credits \u2013 represents a population that could vie with that of a small city.<\/p>\n

Hugo<\/em> is based on Brian Selznick\u2019s 1997 novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret <\/em>\u2013 a book that, in key sequences, unfolds in full-page graphics. In fact, it is the only novel to win a children\u2019s literature Caldecott Medal, an annual award for the most outstanding illustrations in a picture book. Selznick\u2019s charcoal-toned pictures capture the wide-eyed wonder of a young orphan boy who lives in the clock tower of a Parisian train station in 1930. Abandoned by his alcoholic uncle who serviced the clockworks, Hugo has taken on this job as he attempts to restore an automaton that his father had been attempting to bring to working order before he was killed in a museum fire.<\/p>\n

The automaton, we discover, is the original handiwork of the pioneer French film-maker George Melies from his earlier career as a magician and gadgetry wizard. Melies, now a broken man, with his films destroyed, the celluloid melted down and used for making boot-heels, operates a toy shop in the concourse of the train station. As he steals from Melies\u2019 shop the bits and pieces he needs to mend the automaton, Hugo encounters Melies\u2019 goddaughter, Isabelle, who becomes a friend and the two uncover the secret of her godfather\u2019s past.<\/p>\n

In adapting the novel, scriptwriter John Logan has been faithful to the spirit of Selznick\u2019s story. The changes he\u2019s made, building the character of the station inspector and giving him a mechanically-enhanced leg, developing parallel scenarios among the other characters in the train concourse (Madame Emilie who runs a caf\u00e9; the portly Monsieur Frick who is smitten by her; Lisette, a flower vendor who has captured the amorous attentions of the inspector) serve the transition from written word to theatrical narrative.<\/p>\n

Martin Scorsese, the director, has also kept the tone and feel of Selznick\u2019s book which was rather tricky as he added colour and technical dimensionality. How has he accomplished this? I think much of it has to do with the fact that he has such an in-depth sense of film history that he can replicate intuitively the pace and voice of a late-1920s-early-1930s Hollywood movie \u2013 and also the charming French films of that era. He pays homage not only to the first movies ever screened along with Melies fantastic pre-World War I pictures, but also Harold Lloyd\u2019s hair-raising comedy and Chaplin\u2019s sentimentality.<\/p>\n

In the process, Scorsese has managed some perfect casting: Asa Butterfield not only has Hugo\u2019s wonderful eyes but he has that kind of unaffected innocence that only a few child actors seem to manage; Chloe Grace Moretz as Isabelle falls nicely into sync with his character: Ben Kingsley brings a profound deep-voiced sadness to the aging George Melies; Sacha Baron Cohen knows how to kick the comic twitches of the station inspector into high gear with his one good leg.<\/p>\n

But the real star of the film is its special effects. While paying homage to those film-makers who had audiences screaming as a train hurtled into a station, gasping as a department store clerk dangles high over a city street from the hand of a huge clock, or chuckling as a rocket plummets into the eye of the man in the moon; Hugo <\/em>offers us its own advances in film-making. If you have a phobia about heights, as I do, you will barely be able to look at the dizzying perspectives within the clock tower of the train station. Chases through the station\u2019s concourse are breathtakingly manic. The magic of digital artistry allows us to roam over the streets of Paris eighty years ago.<\/p>\n

Give yourself a special treat this Christmas \u2013 go and see the 3D version of Hugo.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Book Pick: Star Mother’s Youngest Child My book pick for this December is my favourite Christmas book \u2013 one I have read regularly over the years at Christmas to school children and members of my own family. It is Star Mother\u2019s Youngest Child (Houghton Mifflin, 1975) with text by Louise Moeri and illustrations by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-glen-huser-movie-and-book-picks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":684,"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions\/684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glenhuser.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}