John Muto on Dante Ferretti

Muto'Hugo'John Muto on Dante Ferretti, production designer, "Hugo"As director Ernst Lubitsch, a European sophisticate, stated in early nineteen thirties, "There's Paramount's Paris, Metro's Paris, and, obviously, Paris, France. But Paramount's Paris is easily the most Parisian."Now, eighty years later, in "Hugo," there exists a fabulous new/old Paris to rival all of them, produced by Dante Ferretti for director Martin Scorsese -- and Vital.Production designers, in trying to describe their work, sometimes dazzle audiences by blithely stating we're "in the industry of making mobile phone industry's." Fortunately, Ferretti's work proves that statement is equally as grand because it sounds. He regularly produces mobile phone industry's out only imagination (along with a little money), such classics as "And also the Ship Sails On," "Titus," "Kundun," "Age Innocence," "Gangs of NY."In "Hugo" we discover inside us Ferretti's Paris of 1930, on the planet of the orphaned boy living within the walls from the Gare Montparnasse -- a produced railroad station as aesthetically resonant because the Hunchback's Notre Dame or even the Phantom's Paris Opera.Diving still much deeper, this boy lives inside the station's clockworks, obsessive about the mystery of clockwork automaton. Once our planet, fantastical yet totally credible, is made, Ferretti then recreates for all of us the start of the cinema fantastique -- another world both beautiful and true.It should be stated these impossible images never take us from the film -- rather, they really pull us much deeper in to the wonderful illusion. That's the effect of a true marriage of art and technology, and it is a classic purpose of Ferretti's and the collaborators' feeling of design.One further believed that found mind initially when i first saw "Hugo": Is it feasible that Ferretti and the guys might have provided us with "The Red-colored Footwear" for that new century? It is possible to greater accolade?John Muto's credits include "Home Alone" and "Species."ADG Honours 2012Tightening the definitionDesigners on designProduction designers and art company directors discuss the ADG-nominated work of the peersJohn Muto on Dante Ferretti Greg Grande on Jefferson Sage Norm Newberry on Stuart Craig John Sabato on Patti Podesta Ken Averill on Christopher Glass John Shaffner on Steve Bass Dork Blass on Mark Worthington John Iacovelli on James Yarnell Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com