From "Hugo" to "You've Got....Mail"
Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 10:56AM In Martin Scorsese's film "Hugo," there's a "male" facsimile made of what looks like metal, sitting around doing nothing simply because he's missing parts and which if found, he'd fulfill the purpose of his creation, move the writing piece in-between his fingers and leave his markings on a piece of paper. Yet, he'd still be "artificially alive," just as he was back when Titans lived on Mount Olympus.
He is an automaton, a non-electric moving devise whose insides consists of wheels, cogs, cranks, levers and ratchets, with a varying outside, from human to animal to any animate form. No matter, they all do the same thing, perform a repetitive function, several of which I witnessed during my visit last August to New Jersey's Murtogh D. Guinness (Anglo-Irish brewers) wing, inside the Morristown Museum, where his 7,000 mechanical musical instruments, 5,000 programmed media, from player piano rolls to pinned cylinders and various automata reside, honoring a provision of his will, after his 2002 death, that all that he left be kept together.
Guinness, born in 1911 in London, discovered his heart's delight when he was six, in a Paris shop when he asked his mother to buy him a mechanical pop-up bird. She did and thus was born his fascination for all things moving, albeit hand-crafted. Twenty years later he began "seriously" amassing mechanical musical instruments, music boxes, clockwork driven dolls, self-playing instruments, fairground organs and orchestrions, machines that sounded like an orchestra or band.
When he located to New York City, taking with him his "conjurers, illusionists and acrobats" he bought twin town houses on the Upper East Side with sufficient space for his possessions, including room for his myriad of guests who'd drop in say at 2 AM, to discuss the likes of 18th century Jacques de Vaucanson, who was rich enough to spend his time making automata, like his gilded copper Duck which drank, ate, quacked and splashed about in water and also digested food. Or his 5 foot 10 inch Flute Player who, when a current of air came through his body, his lips and fingers would move, opening and closing holes on the flute as small integrated parts hidden from view produced twelve tunes.
Then they'd bemoan the present state of affairs, the simple machine-made, automata which the public could now afford, but not comparable to the intricacy of those wrought by that 18th century magician, Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, who demonstrated his from the stage, leaving his wide-eyed audience members thinking they were seeing magic. They were ignorant of the provenance of these devices.
An automaton attacked the Greek god Prometheus. He did so under orders of Zeus, who was so angered by Prometheus' stealing of fire and bestowing it upon mortals, he turned to Hephaestus, the only Greek god who had a job. He worked with his hands, commanding technicians, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans. He commissioned him to make an automaton. He had already rendered a variety, like the two tripods who went back and forth from Mount Olympus and the bronze giant who patrolled Crete, throwing rocks at enemy vessels and when near intruders he'd heat up his body and then hug them to death.
And so he brought forth a bonze eagle with a beak strong enough to peck away at Prometheus' regenerating liver and if need be attack his heart. The torture implied in such a scene was attemped to be rendered in 1934, by sculptor Paul Manship, with his bronze Prometheus covered in 24 carat gold leaf, 18 feet high, weighing 8 tons, with a mountain-size pedestal representative of earth and a band engraved with zodiac symbols, emblematic of the heavens whose chief inhabitant he had betrayed, encircling him. He's still here, looking down upon those who traffic in the sunken plaza of Rockefeller Center.
Now "Hugo" the film was not berthed from an original screenplay, but adapted from best selling children's author Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret, who gets kudos routinely from books sellers, they so used to flat sales. Only in children's books stores is there any growth or let's say any hope of sustaining profit, for 70% of their walk-ins are grandparents, aunts and uncles and parents. They are not there for themselves, but to purchase for children and wanting the advice of a bookseller.
Selznick himself was employed for three years in a children's book store, Eeyore's, the first one in New York City in the 1970's, at 79th Street and Broadway, later opening an east side branch and in the 1990's closing both, claiming to be a victim of the superstore onslaught, duly noted and chronicled by west side neighbor- screenwriter-director Nora Ephron in her "You've Got Mail." There Tom Hanks' character says to the Meg Ryan one, "Well, let me ask you something. How can you forgive this guy for standing you up and not forgive me for this tiny little thing of ...of putting you out of business?"
I have no idea what Meg said, but I would have uttered similar words to what Scott, a high school senior spewed, when he fell upon a zombie about to take over his home town, in that $30,000 indie-horror film, "Automaton Transfusion."
"You're not human. I'd like to take a chain saw and run it through your head."
Violent though that sounds upon first hearing, he did achieve his goal. He differentiated himself from the automata who would soon surround him. For those who are not "artificially alive" can speak their minds, defend their turf, stand up to their enemies and dream their dreams, even if what they put their hopes into goes straight to video.
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Reader Comments (6)
Where is Tom Cruise...when you need him...???. !
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Excellent work! This is so well researched. That wing in the Morristown Museum sounds like a quite a site.
Automaton......I learn something new every time I read your blog. Thank you, Thank you. Please keep on writing and sharing your knowledge and experiences. You are a gift!
Jane - Enjoyed this as always. Mic enjoyed seeing you on his recent trip to NY.
Merry Christmas!!
Maria
Goode, Va
You never fail to amaze me with your well-written posts. I am thinking to watch the movie "Hugo" again. :) Happy Holidays!
- Kevin Wiess
Jane this is a great article. I enjoyed reading it. Thanks for your words of wisdom, and for that I love. I enjoyed your company last evening at the party.