What I learned from the Hugo book

Damn it, I loved the Hugo flick. I want to go see it again after reading the book, probably by myself so I'll feel free enough to sit and cry because, damn it, Georges Melies deserves recognition, man and I'm so glad he's getting it plus that damn automaton storylne, watching Melies destroy his film props and the little orphan kid just slay me.

So, a few random things I learned from Selznick's companion book:

• Martin Scorsese actually remembers the first movie he ever saw, David O. Selznick produced Duel in the Sun. This caused me to think hard on the first movie I saw and....I have no idea. The first one I remember seeing in the theatre was a Bruce Lee flick. I'm pretty sure I made it about 20 minutes before being bored stiff and demanding to leave. In my defense, I was 4 so this was pretty much the inevitable outcome.
• Speaking of Selznick, yes, he is related to the author.
• To create the dust in the train station, the cinematographer Robert Richardson used shredded goose down and blew it around with fans.
• Melies did really own several automatons. They were popular with magicians (which Melies was) around the turn of the century. Just like in the movie, he donated them to a museum where they were stored in the attic and destroyed by water damage which is too painful to contemplate very much.
• Melies' family owned a shoe factory which he sold to buy a theatre from another magician named Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin. Yes, the name isn't a coincidence. The Hungarian magician Ehrich Weiss was inspired after seeing him to change his name to Houdini.
• Houdin owned an automaton named Antonio Diavolo that performed a trapeze act. I'm not sure if the original version still exists. Here is a reproduction:

•  In 1739, the inventor Jacques de Vaucanson invented an automaton duck that could flap its wings, eat and apparently shit. Which probably would have been cool to see until you realized there is quite enough bird shit in the world already, particularly if you work in an office park with a pond.
• Around 1800, the Swiss mechanic Henri Maillardet created some automatons that wrote and drew pictures, just like in the film. You can see video of one of his automatons here.