The intricate, cinematic world of 'hugo cabret'

The beginning of the story called _The Invention of Hugo Cabret_ unfurls like a miniature silent film — even though it is a book, written and illustrated by Brian Selznick. The opening pages

of the children's book don't have any words, just black-and-white drawings on a black page. In fact, finely detailed pencil drawings — unaccompanied by text — fill more than half

the book's 500-plus pages. Selznick, a well-known illustrator, has employed an experimental form in _Hugo Cabret_: He says the pictures pick up where the prose leaves off — and propel

the story forward. The book tells the story of Hugo Cabret, an orphan who lives in a Paris train station. Along the way, readers also meet a young girl named Isabelle and her godfather, a

gruff old man who runs a small toy booth in the train station. Hugo has been stealing windup toys from the old man's booth. The orphan is trying to fix something very special: an

automaton — a complicated, windup figure — left behind when his clockmaker father died. The grumpy old man turns out to be George Melies, a real-life magician-turned-pioneering filmmaker,

who in 1902 made the first science-fiction movie, _A Trip to the Moon_. Although he made more than 500 films, Melies fell on hard times and lost his movie studio. He spent the last years of

his life working seven days a week at a toy booth in the Paris train station. _A Trip to the Moon_ and the "crude magic" of its special effects fascinated author Selznick. A few

years ago, he read a book about the history of robotics — which included a chapter on the French filmmaker, an avid collector of automata. And the idea for _Hugo Cabret_ was born. Copyright

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