By Chris Betros

Arts & Culture Feb. 23, 2012 - 06:28AM JST ( 0 )

TOKYO —

After 44 years and 52 films, director Martin Scorsese has finally made a film that children can see—“Hugo,” a 3D fable that has been nominated for 11 Academy Awards. “Actually, my wife said to me: ‘Why don’t you make a movie our 12-year-old daughter can see, for a change?’” the 69-year-old director remarked during a visit to Tokyo last week.

Set in Paris in 1931, “Hugo” is an homage to French pioneering movie director Georges Melies. The father of a young boy (Hugo) dies, leaving behind a mysterious automaton that, when fixed, can write. Hugo, who lives inside the walls of a train station, makes it his mission to fix it, believing that it will reveal a message from his father. The film stars young Asa Butterfield as the title character, Ben Kingsley, Jude Law, Sacha Baron Cohen, Christopher Lee, Emily Mortimer and Ray Winstone.

“It’s a very special and personal film for me and something I have never done before,” said Scorsese. “Having a child late in life has made me see the world from her perspective and that of her friends. It has also opened me up to a freer way of thinking about the world and takes me back to my original impulses as a child when I used to draw pictures and make them move to tell a story. When you have that creative impulse, it does not bow to any obstacles.”

Born in Queens, New York, Scorsese said he was very similar to the character of Hugo when he was a child. “I had asthma from the age of three, so I was isolated a lot in those days. I couldn’t play any sports, be around any greenery or animals. My dad was a very stern man and when I was a teenager, he used to take me to the movies often. That’s how we bonded – through movies, more than by talking to each other. I grew up watching the films of Billy Wilder, George Stevens and especially westerns. The westerns took me to a world that I couldn’t experience – wide open spaces, mountains and animals.”

Scorsese contemplated the priesthood for a while but decided to make movies instead in the mid-1960s after graduating from New York University’s film school. “A lot of my films are based on my family, friends, myself and people I knew growing up,” said Scorsese who has become critically acclaimed for such films as “Who’s That Knocking at My Door,” “Mean Streets,” “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” “Goodfellas,” “The Age of Innocence,” “Casino,” Gangs of New York,” “The Aviator,” “The Departed” and “Shutter Island.”

“Hugo” is his first 3D film. “I’ve always been obsessed with 3D technology. I’m talking to you now in 3D. Life is 3D, so why shouldn’t movies be? It is natural and makes the actors more accessible,” he said.

Though he considers himself an old-fashioned filmmaker, Scorsese said he is thrilled at the latest movie-making technology. During his visit to Tokyo, film students were invited to a special screening of “Hugo,” and then had a mini-talk show with Scorsese afterward.

“Filmmakers of my generation always faced restrictions in terms of budgets and freedom of speech in trying to tell a story the way we wanted to tell it,” he said. “But today, there are so many new ways of making a film and distributing it, especially online. It’s opening up another path which will probably take us to a form of cinema that will be unrecognizable to my generation.”

“Hugo” opens in Japan on March 1.