3D Sucks In Scorsese Too? ‘Invention of Hugo Cabret’ To Need Silly Glasses

Even more Scorsese news today…

Seriously, if James Cameron were to jump off a cliff, would every other director in Hollywood follow him? In a throwaway line at the bottom of a Variety article on the rumored Von Trier-sponsored “Taxi Driver” remake, there’s a mention of “The Invention of Hugo Cabret,” which is confirmed to be Martin Scorsese’s next project, and is set to shoot in Paris in May. The film, Scorsese’s first kids movie, being an adaptation of Brian Selznick’s best-selling children’s novel, follows an orphaned boy, and his friendship with filmmaker Georges Méliès.

Maybe it’s because it’s aimed at a younger audience, or maybe because Scorsese thinks it’ll help the film, but Variety suggests that the project will be in 3D, which is big news; while acclaimed blockbuster guys like Spielberg, Jackson and Cameron have all made the leap, Scorsese’s clearly on a different level. We’re yet to truly drink the Kool Aid on the three-dimensional revolution, but, as one of our contributors pointed out, the director’s love, and knowledge, of cinema is pretty much unsurpassed by anyone (which, incidentally, makes him perfect for “Hugo Cabret”), and if anyone can do something truly fascinating with the grammar, and with 3D composition, it’s him.

In a recent panel at the LA County Museum of Art, Scorsese told the audience he was considering the medium, saying that “I said ‘I really would [like to shoot in 3D] and one of the [filmmakers I was talking to] pointed to space [motioning between the screen and the audience]. I said, you’re right, I would have to know how to utilize that space in the script — when to use that [camera] move or when to reveal that thing in 3D. Now, I don’t know if I could do that. But I said maybe my daughter’s generation will. They’ll just know by naturally because of the technology they have at their disposal.” But perhaps the director’s worked out a way to do it? We certainly hope it’s not just simply bandwagon jumping.

In other news from the owl-eyebrowed director, he discussed his upcoming reunion with Robert De Niro on a project set in the ‘mobster world’ – presumably the Steve Zaillian-scripted “The Irishman,” formerly known as “I Heard You Paint Houses.” When asked at Berlin if he would return to the crime genre, he told the crowd “Bob De Niro [and I] are talking about something that has to do with that world. There’s no doubt about that. We’re working on something like that, but it’s from the vantage point of older men looking back, none of this running around stuff.”