Restoring the Magic

The fact that running a bunch of still pictures through light can create the illusion of motion is a miracle. Movies are truly magic. But in a world full of screens, the magic can be easily lost. Movies are no longer something reserved for special occasions where you have to wear your best clothes and get to go to a gorgeous theater. Moving images are everywhere. They’re on the wall at Panda Express. So how do you foster wonder and amazement in the era of “screen time”?

The first thing I tried was flip-books. Sure any flip-book will get the point across (heck even drawings in the margins of a notebook will do the trick) but if you’re like me and want to keep things Cinema-centric, I recommend Fliptomania which produces a lovely set of three Charlie Chaplin flip-books. Of course if you want to get real fancy about things, many of The Cinema’s primitive ancestors (optical toys like the zoetrope and the magic lantern) were marketed as childish diversions, so I guess those would probably work as well. But where to go next after the novelty of a three-second loop wears off?

This is the same problem that many of Film’s early pioneers bumped up against and the solution here is the same - incorporate narrative! A perfect starting point for this is Mara Rockliff and Simona Ciraolo’s wonderful children’s book Lights! Camera! Alice! The Thrilling True Adventures of the First Woman Filmmaker. It’s a great story about perseverance, that touches on the innovations made during those early days of moviemaking, while also letting kids know that women such as Alice Guy Blanché were there from the very beginning of the medium. A great supplement to this book is watching some of Alice’s films which you can either find on YouTube or purchase in gorgeous Blu-ray’s from Kino. There’s also a great Kino set that covers early female filmmakers more broadly as well.

When your child is old enough for longer stories with chapters, Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret is clearly the next step to take. The book is thick as a brick but it goes by in a breeze as several key moments are fittingly related visually, via page upon page of beautiful pencil drawings by Selznick himself. Once the mystery of this boy, this girl, and this mechanical man takes hold of your child, you’ll be done in a matter of evenings. Or even one evening if you’re child is ambitious enough! As for supplements to this book…

Of course Martin Scorsese’s film Hugo is the logical endpoint for all of this. It’s truly a marvel of a movie. Not only is it a whimsical mystery filled with magic and chases, but it is also an expertly crafted film, with assured and non-condescending visual storytelling, that brings those early days of the movies vividly to life! The Blu-ray contains some wonderfully kid-friendly bonus features about the making of the film as well as about the real Georges Méliès. Flicker Alley and Kino both have great collections of his work available and yes, many of the films can also be found on YouTube.

Where to go next is really up to you!