Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès ( , ; 8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938) was a French
magician,
toymaker,
actor
An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...
, and
filmmaker
Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...
. He led many technical and narrative developments in the early days of
cinema, primarily in the
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures.
The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...
and
science fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
genres. Méliès rose to prominence creating "
trick film
In the early history of cinema, trick films were short silent films designed to feature innovative special effects.
History
The trick film genre was developed by Georges Méliès in some of his first cinematic experiments, and his works remain ...
s" and became well known for his innovative use of
special effects
Special effects (often abbreviated as F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the fictional events in a story or virtual world. ...
, popularizing such techniques as
substitution splice
The substitution splice or stop trick is a cinematic special effect in which filmmakers achieve an appearance, disappearance, or transformation by altering one or more selected aspects of the mise-en-scène between two shots
while maintaining t ...
s,
multiple exposure
In photography and cinematography, a multiple exposure is the superimposition of two or more exposures to create a single image, and double exposure has a corresponding meaning in respect of two images. The exposure values may or may not be ide ...
s,
time-lapse photography
Time-lapse photography is a technique in which the frequency at which film frames are captured (the frame rate) is much lower than the frequency used to view the sequence. When played at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and th ...
,
dissolves, and
hand-painted colour. He was also one of the first filmmakers to use
storyboard
A storyboard is a graphic organizer that consists of simple illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. The storyboarding proce ...
s in his work.
His most important films include ''
A Trip to the Moon
''A Trip to the Moon'' ( , ) is a 1902 French science-fiction adventure trick film written, directed, and produced by Georges Méliès. Inspired by the Jules Verne novel ''From the Earth to the Moon'' (1865) and its sequel '' Around the Moon ...
'' (1902) and ''
The Impossible Voyage'' (1904).
Early life and education
Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès was born 8 December 1861 in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, son of Jean-Louis Méliès and his
Dutch wife Johannah-Catherine Schuering. His father had moved to Paris in 1843 as a shoemaker and began working at a boot factory, where he met Méliès' mother. Johannah-Catherine's father had been the official bootmaker of the
Dutch court before a fire ruined his business. Eventually the two married, founded a high-quality boot factory on the Boulevard Saint-Martin, and had sons Henri and
Gaston; by the time their third son Georges, had been born, the family had become wealthy.
Georges Méliès attended the Lycée Michelet from age seven until it was bombed during the
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the War of 1870, was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 Janua ...
; he was then sent to the prestigious
Lycée Louis-le-Grand
The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (), also referred to simply as Louis-le-Grand or by its acronym LLG, is a public Lycée (French secondary school, also known as sixth form college) located on Rue Saint-Jacques (Paris), rue Saint-Jacques in central Par ...
. In his memoirs, Méliès emphasised his formal, classical education, in contrast to accusations early in his career that most filmmakers had been "illiterates incapable of producing anything artistic." However, he acknowledged that his creative instincts usually outweighed intellectual ones: "The artistic passion was too strong for him, and while he pondered a French composition or Latin verse, his pen mechanically sketched portraits or caricatures of his professors or classmates, if not some fantasy palace or an original landscape that already had the look of a theatre set." Often disciplined by teachers for covering his notebooks and textbooks with drawings, young Georges began building cardboard
puppet theatre
Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets – inanimate objects, often resembling some type of human or animal figure, that are animated or manipulated by a human called a puppeteer. Such a performan ...
s at age 10 and crafted sophisticated
marionette
A marionette ( ; ) is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a marionettist. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by ...
s as a teenager. Méliès graduated from the Lycée with a baccalauréat in 1880.
Stage career
After completing his education, Méliès joined his brothers in the family shoe business, where he learned how to sew. After three years' mandatory military service, his father sent him to London to work as a clerk for a family friend and to improve his English. While in London, he began to visit the
Egyptian Hall, run by the London illusionist
John Nevil Maskelyne, and he developed a lifelong passion for
stage magic. Méliès returned to Paris in 1885 with a new desire: to study painting at the
École des Beaux-Arts
; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centu ...
. His father, however, refused to support him financially as an artist, so Georges settled with supervising the machinery at the family factory. That same year, he avoided his family's desire for him to marry his brother's sister-in-law and instead married Eugénie Génin, a family friend's daughter whose guardians had left her a sizable dowry. They had two children: Georgette, born in 1888, and André, born in 1901.

While working at the family factory, Méliès continued to cultivate his interest in stage magic, attending performances at the
Théâtre Robert-Houdin, which had been founded by the magician
Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin. He also began taking magic lessons from Emile Voisin, who gave him the opportunity to perform his first public shows, at the Cabinet Fantastique of the
Grévin Wax Museum and, later, at the
Galerie Vivienne.
In 1888, Méliès' father retired, and Georges Méliès sold his share of the family shoe business to his two brothers. With the money from the sale and from his wife's dowry, he purchased the Théâtre Robert-Houdin. Although the theatre was "superb" and equipped with
lights, levers, trap doors, and several
automata
An automaton (; : automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions. Some automata, such as bellstrikers i ...
, many of the available illusions and tricks were out of date, and attendance to the theatre was low even after Méliès' initial renovations.
Over the next nine years, Méliès personally created over 30 new illusions that brought more comedy and melodramatic pageantry to performances, much like those Méliès had seen in London, and attendance greatly improved. One of his best-known illusions was the ''Recalcitrant Decapitated Man'', in which a professor's head is cut off in the middle of a speech and continues talking until it is returned to his body. When he purchased the Théâtre Robert-Houdin, Méliès also inherited its chief mechanic Eugène Calmels and such performers as
Jehanne D'Alcy, who became his mistress and later his second wife. While running the theatre, Méliès also worked as a political cartoonist for the liberal newspaper ''La Griffe'', which was edited by his cousin Adolphe Méliès.
Early film career
On 27 December 1895, Méliès attended a special private demonstration of the
Lumière brothers
Lumière is French for 'light'.
Lumiere, Lumière or Lumieres may refer to:
Buildings
* Lumière, a building used by the Bibliothèque publique d'information in Paris, France
* Lumiere (skyscraper), a cancelled skyscraper development in Leeds, ...
'
cinematograph
Cinematograph or kinematograph is an early term for several types of motion picture film mechanisms. The name was used for movie cameras as well as film projectors, or for complete systems that also provided means to print films (such as the ...
, given for owners of Parisian houses of spectacle. Méliès immediately offered the Lumières 10,000 francs for one of their machines; the Lumières refused, anxious to keep a close control on their invention and to emphasize the scientific nature of the device. (For the same reasons, they refused the
Musée Grévin
The ' (; ) () is a wax museum located on the Grands Boulevards in the 9th arrondissement of Paris on the right bank of the Seine. The also has a location in Seoul. opened in 2013, and closed in 2021.
History
The museum was founded in 1882 by ...
's 20,000 francs bid and the
Folies Bergère's 50,000 francs bid the same night.) Méliès, intent on finding a
film projector
A movie projector (or film projector) is an opto-mechanical device for displaying motion picture film by projecting it onto a screen. Most of the optical and mechanical elements, except for the illumination and sound devices, are present in ...
for the Théâtre Robert-Houdin, turned elsewhere; numerous other inventors in Europe and America were experimenting with machines similar to the Lumières' invention, albeit at a less technically sophisticated level. Possibly acting on a tip from Jehanne d'Alcy, who may have seen
Robert W. Paul's Animatograph film projector while on tour in England, Méliès traveled to London. He bought an Animatograph from Paul, as well as several short films sold by Paul and by the
Edison Manufacturing Company
The Edison Manufacturing Company, originally registered as under the name of the United Edison Manufacturing Company and often known as simply the Edison Company, was organized by scientist / inventor and entrepreneur, Thomas A. Edison (1847–1 ...
. By April 1896, the Théâtre Robert-Houdin was showing films as part of its daily performances.
Méliès, after studying the design of the Animatograph, modified the machine so that it served as a film camera. As raw film stock and film processing labs were not yet available in Paris, Méliès purchased unperforated film in London, and personally developed and printed his films through trial and error.
In September 1896, Méliès, Lucien Korsten, and Lucien Reulos patented the Kinétographe Robert-Houdin, a cast iron camera-projector, which Méliès referred to as his "coffee grinder" and "machine gun" because of the noise that it made. By 1897 technology had caught up and better cameras were put on sale in Paris, leading Méliès to discard his own camera and purchase several better cameras made by
Gaumont,
the Lumières, and
Pathé
Pathé SAS (; styled as PATHÉ!) is a French major film production and distribution company, owning a number of cinema chains through its subsidiary Pathé Cinémas and television networks across Europe.
It is the name of a network of Fren ...
.
Méliès directed over 500 films from 1896 to 1913, ranging in length from 1 minute to 40 minutes. In subject matter, these films are often similar to the magic theatre shows that Méliès had been doing, containing "
tricks" and impossible events, such as objects disappearing or changing size. These early special effects films were essentially devoid of plot. The special effects were used only to show what was possible, rather than enhance the overall narrative. Méliès' early films were mostly composed of single in-camera effects, used for the entirety of the film. For example, after experimenting with multiple exposure, Méliès created his film ''
The One-Man Band'' in which he played seven different characters simultaneously.
Méliès began shooting his first films in May 1896, and screening them at the Théâtre Robert-Houdin by that August. At the end of 1896 he and Reulos founded the
Star Film Company, with Korsten acting as his primary camera operator. Many of his early films were copies and remakes of the
Lumière brothers
Lumière is French for 'light'.
Lumiere, Lumière or Lumieres may refer to:
Buildings
* Lumière, a building used by the Bibliothèque publique d'information in Paris, France
* Lumiere (skyscraper), a cancelled skyscraper development in Leeds, ...
' films, made to compete with the 2000 daily customers of the Grand Café. This included his first film ''
Playing Cards
A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a Pap ...
'', which is similar to an early Lumière film. However, many of his other early films reflected Méliès' knack for theatricality and spectacle, such as ''
A Terrible Night'', in which a hotel guest is attacked by a giant
bedbug
Bed bugs are parasitic insects from the genus ''Cimex'', which are micropredators that feed on blood, usually at night. Their bites can result in a number of health impacts, including skin rashes, psychological effects, and allergic symptom ...
. But more importantly, the Lumière brothers had dispatched camera operators across the world to document it as
ethnographic
Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...
documentarians, intending their invention to be highly important in scientific and historical study. Méliès' Star Film Company, on the other hand, was geared more towards the "fairground clientele" who wanted his specific brand of magic and illusion: art.
In these earliest films, Méliès began to experiment with (and often invent) special effects that were unique to filmmaking. This began, according to Méliès' memoirs, by accident when his camera jammed in the middle of a take and "a Madeleine-Bastille bus changed into a hearse and women changed into men. The substitution trick, called the
stop trick, had been discovered." This same stop trick effect had already been used by Thomas Edison when depicting a decapitation in ''
The Execution of Mary Stuart''; however, Méliès' film effects and unique style of film magic were his own. He first used these effects in ''
The Vanishing Lady'', in which the by then cliché magic trick of a person vanishing from the stage by means of a trap door is enhanced by the person turning into a skeleton until finally reappearing on the stage.
In September 1896, Méliès began to build a film studio on his property in
Montreuil, just outside Paris. The main stage building was made entirely of glass walls and ceilings so as to allow in sunlight for film exposure and its dimensions were identical to the Théâtre Robert-Houdin. The property also included a shed for dressing rooms and a hangar for set construction. Because colours often photograph in unexpected ways on black-and-white film, all sets, costumes and actors' makeup were coloured in different tones of gray. Méliès described the studio as "the union of the photography workshop (in its gigantic proportions) and the theatre stage." Actors performed in front of a painted set as inspired by the conventions of magic and musical theatre. For the remainder of his film career, he divided his time between Montreuil and the Théâtre Robert-Houdin, where he "arrived at the studio at seven a.m. to put in a 10-hour day building sets and props. At five, he would change his clothes and set out for Paris in order to be at the theatre office by six to receive callers. After a quick dinner, he was back to the theatre for the eight o'clock show, during which he sketched his set designs, and then returned to Montreuil to sleep. On Fridays and Saturdays, he shot scenes prepared during the week, and Sundays and holidays were taken up with a theatre matinee, three film screenings, and an evening presentation that lasted until eleven-thirty."
In total, Méliès made 78 films in 1896 and 52 in 1897. By this time, he had covered every genre of film that he would continue to film for the rest of his career. These included the Lumière-like documentaries, comedies, historical reconstructions, dramas, magic tricks, and ''
féeries'' (fairy stories), which became his most well-known genre. In 1897, Méliès was commissioned by the popular singer
Paulus to make films of his performances.
[Abel, ''Encyclopedia of Early Cinema']
p.460
/ref> Because Paulus refused to perform outdoor, some thirty arc and mercury lamp
A mercury-vapor lamp is a gas-discharge lamp that uses an electric arc through vaporized Mercury (element), mercury to produce light. The arc discharge is generally confined to a small fused quartz arc tube mounted within a larger Soda–lime gl ...
s had to be used in Méliès studio, one of the first times artificial light was used for cinematography.[Anthony, Barry & Bottomore, Stephen]
Paulus (Jean-Paulin Habans)
''Who's Who of Victorian Cinema''. Retrieved 8 November 2021 The films were projected as '' Paulus Chantant'' at the '' Ba-Ta-Clan''. There, Paulus sat behind the cinema screen and sang the songs – thus giving the illusion of cinema with sound.
That same year, Georges Brunel wrote that "MM. Méliès and Reulos have, above all, made a speciality of fantastic or artistic scenes, reproductions of theatre scenes, etc., so as to create a special genre, entirely distinct from the ordinary cinematographic views consisting of street scenes or genre subjects." Like the Lumière brothers
Lumière is French for 'light'.
Lumiere, Lumière or Lumieres may refer to:
Buildings
* Lumière, a building used by the Bibliothèque publique d'information in Paris, France
* Lumiere (skyscraper), a cancelled skyscraper development in Leeds, ...
and Pathé
Pathé SAS (; styled as PATHÉ!) is a French major film production and distribution company, owning a number of cinema chains through its subsidiary Pathé Cinémas and television networks across Europe.
It is the name of a network of Fren ...
, Star Films also made " stag films" such as '' Peeping Tom at the Seaside'', '' A Hypnotist at Work'' and '' After the Ball'', which is the only one of these films that has survived, and stars Jeanne d'Alcy stripping down to a flesh-coloured leotard and being bathed by her maid. From 1896 to 1900, Méliès made 10 advertisements for products such as whiskey, chocolate, and baby cereal. In September 1897, Méliès attempted to turn the Théâtre Robert-Houdin into a movie theatre with fewer magic shows and film screenings every night. But by late December 1897, film screenings were limited to Sunday nights only.
Méliès made only 27 films in 1898, but his work was becoming more ambitious and elaborate. His films included a historical reconstruction of the sinking of the USS ''Maine'' titled '' Divers at Work on the Wreck of the "Maine"'', the magic trick film '' The Famous Box Trick'', and the ''féerie'' '' The Astronomer's Dream''. In this film, Méliès plays an astronomer who has the Moon cause his laboratory to transform and demons and angels to visit him. He also made one of his first of many religious satires with '' The Temptation of Saint Anthony'', in which a statue of Jesus Christ
Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
on the cross is transformed into a seductive woman.
He continued to experiment with his in-camera special effects, such as a reverse shot in '' A Dinner Under Difficulties'', where he hand cranked a strip of film backwards through his camera to achieve the effect. He also experimented with superimposition
Superimposition is the placement of one thing over another, typically so that both are still evident. Superimpositions are often related to the mathematical procedure of superposition.
Audio
Superimposition (SI) during sound recording and repro ...
, where he filmed actors in a black background, then rewinded the film through the camera and exposed the footage again to create a double exposure. These films included '' The Cave of the Demons'', in which transparent ghosts haunt a cave, and ''The Four Troublesome Heads
''The Four Troublesome Heads'' (, literally "A Man of Heads"), also known as ''Four Heads Are Better Than One'', is an 1898 French silent trick film directed by Georges Méliès.
Plot
A magician enters the frame and stands between two tables. ...
'', in which Méliès removes his own head three times and creates a musical chorus. Achieving these effects was extremely difficult, requiring considerable skill. In a 1907 article, Méliès noted: "Every second the actor playing different scenes ten times has to remember, while the film is rolling, exactly what he did at the same point in the preceding scenes and the exact place where he was on the stage."
Méliès made 48 films in 1899 as he continued to experiment with special effects, for example in the early horror film '' Robbing Cleopatra's Tomb''. The film is not a historical reconstruction of the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra
Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (; The name Cleopatra is pronounced , or sometimes in both British and American English, see and respectively. Her name was pronounced in the Greek dialect of Egypt (see Koine Greek phonology). She was ...
, and instead depicts her mummy
A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and Organ (biology), organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to Chemical substance, chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the ...
being resurrected in the modern era
The modern era or the modern period is considered the current historical period of human history. It was originally applied to the history of Europe and Western history for events that came after the Middle Ages, often from around the year 1500 ...
. ''Robbing Cleopatra's Tomb'' was believed to be a lost film
A lost film is a feature film, feature or short film in which the original negative or copies are not known to exist in any studio archive, private collection, or public archive. Films can be wholly or partially lost for a number of reasons. ...
until a copy was discovered in 2005 in Paris. That year, Méliès also made two of his most ambitious and well-known films. In the summer he made the historical reconstruction '' The Dreyfus Affair'', a film based on the then-ongoing and controversial political scandal
In politics, a political scandal is an action or event regarded as morally or legally wrong and causing general public outrage. Politicians, government officials, Political party, party officials and Lobbying, lobbyists can be accused of various ...
, in which the Jewish French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus (9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935) was a French Army officer best known for his central role in the Dreyfus affair. In 1894, Dreyfus fell victim to a judicial conspiracy that eventually sparked a major political crisis in the Fre ...
was falsely accused and framed for treason by his commanders. Méliès was pro-Dreyfus and the film depicts Dreyfus sympathetically as falsely accused and unjustly incarcerated on the Devil's Island
The penal colony of Cayenne ( French: ''Bagne de Cayenne''), commonly known as Devil's Island (''ÃŽle du Diable''), was a French penal colony that operated for 100 years, from 1852 to 1952, and officially closed in 1953, in the Salvation Islan ...
prison. At screenings of the film, fights broke out between people on different sides of the debate and the police eventually banned the final part of the film where Dreyfus returns to prison.
Later that year, Méliès made the ''féerie'' ''Cinderella
"Cinderella", or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a Folklore, folk tale with thousands of variants that are told throughout the world.Dundes, Alan. Cinderella, a Casebook. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. The protagonist is a you ...
'', based on Charles Perrault
Charles Perrault ( , , ; 12 January 162816 May 1703) was a French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tales, published in his ...
's fairy tale
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, household tale, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful bei ...
. The film was six minutes long and had a cast of over 35 people, including Bleuette Bernon in the title role. It was also Méliès' first film with multiple scenes, known as ''tableaux''. The film was very successful across Europe and in the United States, playing mostly in fairgrounds and music halls. American film distributors such as Siegmund Lubin
Siegmund Lubin (born Zygmunt LubszyÅ„ski, April 20, 1851 – September 11, 1923) was an American film, motion picture pioneer who founded the Lubin Manufacturing Company (1902–1917) of Philadelphia.
Biography
Siegmund Lubin was born as Zyg ...
were especially in need of new material, both to attract their audience with new films and to counter Edison's growing monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...
. Méliès' films were particularly popular, and ''Cinderella'' was often screened as a featured attraction even years after its U.S. release in December 1899. Such U.S. filmmakers as Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...
were resentful of the competition from foreign companies and after the success of ''Cinderella'', attempted to block Méliès from screening most films in the U.S.; but they soon discovered the process of creating film ''dupes
A dupe is a product similar in appearance, functionality, or design to a higher-end, often more expensive, branded item but sold at a much lower price. Unlike counterfeit products, dupes do not copy trademarked brand names or logos.
Dupe product ...
'' (duplicate negatives). Méliès and others then established in 1900 the trade union Chambre Syndicale des Editeurs Cinématographiques as a way to defend themselves in foreign markets. Méliès was made the first president of the union, serving until 1912, and the Théâtre Robert-Houdin was the group's headquarters.
Around the same time, Méliès used the financial success of his films to expand the Montreuil studio, which allowed him to create even more elaborate sets and additional storage space for his growing archive of props, costumes and other memorabilia.
International success
In 1900, Méliès made numerous films, including the 13-minute-long ''Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc ( ; ; – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the Coronation of the French monarch, coronation of Charles VII o ...
''. He also made '' The One-Man Band'', in which Méliès continued to fine-tune his special effects by multiplying himself on camera to play seven instruments simultaneously. Another notable film was '' The Christmas Dream'', which merged cinematic effects with traditional Christmas pantomime scenes.
In 1901, Méliès continued producing successful films and was at the peak of his popularity. His films that year included '' The Brahmin and the Butterfly'', in which Méliès portrays a Brahmin
Brahmin (; ) is a ''Varna (Hinduism), varna'' (theoretical social classes) within Hindu society. The other three varnas are the ''Kshatriya'' (rulers and warriors), ''Vaishya'' (traders, merchants, and farmers), and ''Shudra'' (labourers). Th ...
who transforms a caterpillar
Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths).
As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder ...
into a beautiful woman with wings, but is himself turned into a caterpillar. He also made the ''féerie'' ''Red Riding Hood'' and '' Blue Beard'', both based on stories from Charles Perrault
Charles Perrault ( , , ; 12 January 162816 May 1703) was a French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tales, published in his ...
. In ''Blue Beard'', Méliès plays the eponymous wife-murderer and co-stars with Jeanne d'Alcy and Bleuette Bernon. The film is an early example of parallel cross-cutting and match cuts of characters moving from one room to the next. The Edison Company's 1902 film ''Jack and the Beanstalk
"Jack and the Beanstalk" is an English fairy tale with ancient origins. It appeared as "The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean" in 1734 4th edition :File:Round about our Coal Fire, or, Christmas Entertainments, 4th edn, 1734.pdf, On C ...
'', directed by Edwin S. Porter, was considered a less successful American version of several Méliès films, particularly ''Blue Beard''. That year, Méliès also made '' Off to Bloomingdale Asylum'', a blackface
Blackface is the practice of performers using burned cork, shoe polish, or theatrical makeup to portray a caricature of black people on stage or in entertainment. Scholarship on the origins or definition of blackface vary with some taking a glo ...
burlesque
A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects. that includes four white bus passengers transforming into one large black passenger, who is then shot by the bus driver.
In 1902, Méliès began to experiment with camera movement to create the illusion of a character changing size. He achieved this effect by "advancing the camera forward" on a pulley-drawn chair system, which was perfected to allow the camera operator to accurately adjust focus and for the actor to adjust his or her position in the frame as needed. This effect began with '' The Devil and the Statue'', in which Méliès plays Satan
Satan, also known as the Devil, is a devilish entity in Abrahamic religions who seduces humans into sin (or falsehood). In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the '' yetzer hara'', or ' ...
and grows to the size of a giant
In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: ''wiktionary:gigas, gigas'', cognate wiktionary:giga-, giga-) are beings of humanoid appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''gia ...
to terrorize William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's Juliet
Juliet Capulet () is the female protagonist in William Shakespeare's romantic tragedy ''Romeo and Juliet''. A 13-year-old girl, Juliet is the only daughter of the patriarch of the House of Capulet. She falls in love with the male protagonist Ro ...
, but then shrinks when the Virgin Mary
Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...
comes to the rescue of the damsel in distress
The damsel in distress is a narrative device in which one or more men must rescue a woman who has been kidnapped or placed in other peril. The "damsel" is often portrayed as beautiful, popular, and of high social status; she is usually depicted ...
. This effect was used again in '' The Man with the Rubber Head'', in which Méliès plays a scientist who expands his own head to enormous proportions. This experiment, along with the others that he had perfected over the years, was used in his most well-known and beloved film later that year.
In May 1902, Méliès made the film ''A Trip to the Moon
''A Trip to the Moon'' ( , ) is a 1902 French science-fiction adventure trick film written, directed, and produced by Georges Méliès. Inspired by the Jules Verne novel ''From the Earth to the Moon'' (1865) and its sequel '' Around the Moon ...
'' which was loosely based on Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright.
His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...
's 1865 novel ''From the Earth to the Moon
''From the Earth to the Moon: A Direct Route in 97 Hours, 20 Minutes'' () is an 1865 novel by Jules Verne. It tells the story of the Baltimore Gun Club, a post-American Civil War society of weapons enthusiasts, and their attempts to build an en ...
'', its 1870 sequel '' Around the Moon'', and H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...
' 1901 novel '' The First Men in the Moon''. In the film, Méliès stars as Professor Barbenfouillis, a character similar to the astronomer he played in ''The Astronomer's Dream'' in 1898. Professor Barbenfouillis is the President of the Astronomer's Club and proposes an expedition to the Moon. A space vehicle
A space vehicle is the combination of a spacecraft and its launch vehicle which carries it into space. The earliest space vehicles were expendable launch systems, using a single or multistage rocket to carry a relatively small spacecraft in ...
in the form of a large artillery shell is built in his laboratory, and he uses it to launch six men (including himself) on a voyage to the Moon. The vehicle is shot out of a large cannon into space and hits the Man in the Moon
In many cultures, several pareidolic images of a human face, head or body are recognized in the disc of the full moon; they are generally known as the Man in the Moon. The images are based on the appearance of the dark areas (known as lunar m ...
in the eye. The group explores the Moon's surface before going to sleep. As they dream, they are observed by the Moon goddess
A lunar deity or moon deity is a deity who represents the Moon, or an aspect of it. These deities can have a variety of functions and traditions depending upon the culture, but they are often related. Lunar deities and Moon worship can be foun ...
Phoebe, played by Bleuette Bernon, who causes it to snow. Later, while underground, they are attacked and captured by a group of Moon aliens, played by acrobats from the Folies Bergère. Taken before the alien king, they manage to escape and are chased back to their spaceship. Then, with the aid of a rope attached to the spaceship, the men, along with an alien, fall from the Moon back to Earth, landing in the ocean (where a superimposed fish tank creates the illusion of the deep ocean). Eventually the spaceship is towed ashore and the returning adventurers are celebrated by the townspeople. At 14 minutes, it was Méliès' longest film up to that date and cost 10,000 francs to produce.
The film was an enormous success in France and around the world, and Méliès sold both black-and-white and hand-coloured versions to exhibitors. The film made Méliès famous in the United States, where such producers as Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...
, Siegmund Lubin
Siegmund Lubin (born Zygmunt LubszyÅ„ski, April 20, 1851 – September 11, 1923) was an American film, motion picture pioneer who founded the Lubin Manufacturing Company (1902–1917) of Philadelphia.
Biography
Siegmund Lubin was born as Zyg ...
and William Selig had produced illegal copies and made large amounts of money from them. This copyright violation
Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, ...
caused Méliès to open a Star Films office in New York City, with his brother Gaston Méliès
Gaston Méliès (; February 12, 1852 – April 9, 1915) was a French film director who worked primarily in the United States. He was the brother of the film director Georges Méliès.
Biography
Gaston and the third and elder Méliès brother, ...
in charge. Gaston had been unsuccessful in the shoe business and agreed to join his more successful brother in the film industry. He travelled to New York in November 1902 and discovered the extent of the infringement in the U.S., such as Biograph having paid royalties on Méliès' film to film promoter Charles Urban. When Gaston opened the branch office in New York, it included a charter that partly read "In opening a factory and office in New York we are prepared and determined energetically to pursue all counterfeiters and pirates. We will not speak twice, we will act!" Gaston was assisted in the U.S. by Lucien Reulos, who was the husband of Gaston's sister-in-law, Louise de Mirmont.[Lucien Reulos](_blank)
Cinematographes.free.fr. Retrieved 16 August 2013.
Méliès' great success in 1902 continued with his three other major productions of that year. In '' The Coronation of Edward VII'', Méliès reenacts the real-life coronation of Edward VII. The film was shot prior to the actual event (since he was denied access to the coronation) and was commissioned by Charles Urban, head of the Warwick Trading Company and the Star Films representative in London. The film was ready to be released on the day of the coronation; however, the event was postponed for six weeks due to Edward's health. This allowed Méliès to add actual footage of the carriage procession in the film. The film was financially successful and Edward VII
Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until Death and state funeral of Edward VII, his death in 1910.
The second child ...
himself was said to have enjoyed it. Next, Méliès made the ''féeries'' '' Gulliver's Travels Among the Lilliputians and the Giants'', based on the novel
A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...
by Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer, essayist, satirist, and Anglican cleric. In 1713, he became the Dean (Christianity), dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and was given the sobriquet "Dean Swi ...
, and ''Robinson Crusoe
''Robinson Crusoe'' ( ) is an English adventure novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. Written with a combination of Epistolary novel, epistolary, Confessional writing, confessional, and Didacticism, didactic forms, the ...
'', based on the novel
A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...
by Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; 1660 – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, merchant and spy. He is most famous for his novel ''Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its number of translati ...
.
In 1903, Méliès made '' The Kingdom of the Fairies'', which film critic Jean Mitry has called "undoubtedly Méliès's best film, and in any case the most intensely poetic". The ''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' called the film "an interesting exhibit of the limits to which moving picture making can be carried in the hands of experts equipped with time and money to carry out their devices". Prints of the film survive in the film archives of the British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
and the U.S. Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
.
Méliès continued the year by perfecting many of his camera effects, such as more fast-paced transformations in '' Ten Ladies in One Umbrella'' and the seven superimpositions that he used in '' The Melomaniac''. He finished the year with '' The Damnation of Faust'', based on the Faust
Faust ( , ) is the protagonist of a classic German folklore, German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a deal with the Devil at a ...
legend. The film is loosely based on an opera by Hector Berlioz
Louis-Hector Berlioz (11 December 1803 – 8 March 1869) was a French Romantic music, Romantic composer and conductor. His output includes orchestral works such as the ''Symphonie fantastique'' and ''Harold en Italie, Harold in Italy'' ...
, but it pays less attention to the story and more to the special effects that represent a tour of hell
In religion and folklore, hell is a location or state in the afterlife in which souls are subjected to punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history sometimes depict hells as eternal destinations, such as Christianity and I ...
. These include underground gardens, walls of fire and walls of water. In 1904, he made the sequel '' Faust and Marguerite''. This time, the film was based on an opera by Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...
. Méliès also created a combined version of the two films that aligned with the main arias of the operas. He continued making "high art
In a society, high culture encompasses cultural objects of aesthetic value that a society collectively esteems as exemplary works of art, as well as the literature, music, history, and philosophy a society considers representative of its cultur ...
" films later in 1904 such as ''The Barber of Seville
''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( ) is an ''opera buffa'' (comic opera) in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's French comedy ' ...
''. These films were popular with both audiences and critics at the time of their release, and helped Méliès establish more prestige.
His major production of 1904 was '' The Impossible Voyage'', a film similar to ''A Trip to the Moon
''A Trip to the Moon'' ( , ) is a 1902 French science-fiction adventure trick film written, directed, and produced by Georges Méliès. Inspired by the Jules Verne novel ''From the Earth to the Moon'' (1865) and its sequel '' Around the Moon ...
'' about an expedition around the world, into the oceans and even to the Sun
The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...
. In the film, Méliès plays Engineer Mabouloff of the Institute of Incoherent Geography, who is similar to the previous Professor Barbenfouillis. Mabouloff leads a group on the trip on the many Automobouloffs, the vehicles that they use of their travels. As the men are traveling up to the highest peaks of the Alps
The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
...
, their vehicle continues moving upwards and takes them unexpectedly to the Sun, which has a face much like the man in the moon and swallows the vehicle. Eventually the men use a submarine
A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...
to launch back to planet Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...
and into the ocean. They are greeted back home by adoring admirers. The film was 24 minutes long and was a success. Film critic Lewis Jacobs has said that "the film expressed all of Méliès talents ... The complexity of his tricks, his resourcefulness with mechanical contrivances, the imaginativeness of the settings and the sumptuous tableaux made the film a masterpiece for its day."
Later in 1904, Folies Bergère director Victor de Cottens invited Méliès to create a special effects film to be included in his theatre's revue. The result was '' An Adventurous Automobile Trip'', a satire of Leopold II of Belgium
Leopold II (9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909) was the second king of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909, and the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908.
Born in Brussels as the second but eldest-surviving son of King Leo ...
. The film was screened at the Folies Bergère before Méliès began to sell it as a Star Films production. In late 1904, Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...
sued the American production company Paley & Steiner over copyright infringement for films that had stories, characters and even shot set-ups exactly like films that Edison had made. Edison also included Pathé Frères
Pathé SAS (; styled as PATHÉ!) is a French major film production and distribution company, owning a number of cinema chains through its subsidiary Pathé Cinémas and television networks across Europe.
It is the name of a network of Fren ...
, Eberhard Schneider and Star Films in this lawsuit for unspecified reasons. Paley & Steiner settled with Edison out of court (and were later bought out by Edison) and the case never went to trial.
In 1905, Victor de Cottens asked Méliès to collaborate with him on ''The Merry Deeds of Satan'', a theatrical revue for the Théâtre du Châtelet. Méliès contributed two short films for the performances, ''Le Voyage dans l'espace'' (The Space Trip) and ''Le Cyclone'' (The Cyclone), and co-wrote the scenario with de Cottons for the entire revue. 1905 was also the 100th birthday of Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, and the Théâtre Robert-Houdin created a special celebration performance, including Méliès' first new stage trick in several years, ''Les Phénomènes du Spiritisme''. At the same time, he was again remodeling and expanding his studio at Montreuil by installing electric lights, adding a second stage and buying costumes from other sources. Méliès's films for 1905 include the adventure '' The Palace of the Arabian Nights'' and the ''féerie'' '' Rip's Dream'', based on the Rip Van Winkle legend and the opera by Robert Planquette. In 1906, his output included an updated, comedic adaptation of the Faust
Faust ( , ) is the protagonist of a classic German folklore, German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a deal with the Devil at a ...
legend '' The Merry Frolics of Satan'' and '' The Witch''. The ''féerie'' style that Méliès was best known began to lose popularity, and he began to make films in other genres, such as crime films and family films. In the U.S., Gaston Méliès had to reduce the sale prices of three of Méliès' earlier, popular ''féeries'', ''Cinderella'', ''Bluebeard'' and ''Robinson Crusoe''. By the end of 1905, Gaston had cut the prices of all films on the Star Films catalog by 20%, which did improve sales.
Later film career and decline
In 1907, Méliès created three new illusions for the stage and performed them at the Théâtre Robert-Houdin, while he continued producing a steady stream of films, including '' Under the Seas'', and a short version of Shakespeare's ''Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...
''. Yet such film critics as Jean Mitry
Jean-René Pierre Goetgheluck Le Rouge Tillard des Acres de Presfontaines, whose pseudonym was Jean Mitry (; 7 November 1904 – 18 January 1988), was a French Film theory, film theorist, Film criticism, critic and Filmmaking, filmmaker, a co-fo ...
, Georges Sadoul
Georges Sadoul (; 4 February 1904 – 13 October 1967) was a French film critic, journalist and cinema writer. He is known for writing encyclopedias of film and filmmakers, many of which have been translated into English.
Biography
Sadoul w ...
, and others have declared that Méliès' work began to decline, and film scholar Miriam Rosen wrote the works started to "lapse into the repetition of old formulas on the one hand and an uneasy imitation of new trends on the other."
In 1908, Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...
created the Motion Picture Patents Company
The Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC, also known as the Edison Trust), founded in December 1908 and effectively terminated in 1915 after it lost a United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co., federal antitrust suit, was a trust (19th century), ...
as a way to control the film industry in the United States and Europe. The companies that joined the conglomerate were Edison, Biograph, Vitagraph
Vitagraph Studios, also known as the Vitagraph Company of America, was a United States motion picture studio. It was founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York, as the American Vitagraph Company. By 1907 ...
, Essanay
Essanay Studios, officially the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, was an early American film, motion picture movie studio, studio. The studio was founded in 1907 in Chicago by George Kirke Spoor and Broncho Billy Anderson, Gilbert M. Anderson, ...
, Selig, Lubin
Lubin (; ) is a city in Lower Silesian Voivodeship in south-western Poland. It is the administrative seat of Lubin County, and also of the rural district called Gmina Lubin, although it is not part of the territory of the latter, as the town for ...
, Kalem, American Pathé and Méliès' Star Film Company, with Edison acting as president of the collective. Star Films was obligated to supply the MPPC with one thousand feet of film per week, and Méliès made 58 films that year in fulfillment of the obligation. Gaston Méliès
Gaston Méliès (; February 12, 1852 – April 9, 1915) was a French film director who worked primarily in the United States. He was the brother of the film director Georges Méliès.
Biography
Gaston and the third and elder Méliès brother, ...
established his own studio in Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
, the Méliès Manufacturing Company, which helped his brother fulfill the obligation to Edison, although Gaston produced no films in 1908. That year, Méliès made the ambitious film '' Humanity Through the Ages''. This pessimistic film retells the history of humans from Cain and Abel
In the biblical Book of Genesis, Cain and Abel are the first two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices, each from his own fields, to God. God had regard for Ab ...
to the Hague Peace Conference of 1907. The film was unsuccessful, yet Méliès was proud of it throughout his life.
Early in 1909, Méliès presided over the "Congrès International des éditeurs de films" in Paris.
Under Méliès’ chairmanship, the European congress took place from 2 to 4 February 1909. In his ''mémoires'', Méliès says that this congress was the second one, following the 1908 congress. In 1909, the congress made important decisions regarding film leasing, and adoption of a single type of film perforation, in order to thwart Edison and the MPPC. Like others, Méliès was unhappy with the monopoly that Edison had created and wanted to fight back. The members of the congress agreed to no longer sell films, but to lease them for four-month periods only to members of their own organization, and to adopt a standardized film perforation count on all films. Méliès was unhappy about the second of the three conditions, because his principal clients were owners of fairgrounds and music halls. A fairground trade journal quoted Méliès as saying "I am not a corporation; I am an independent producer."
Méliès resumed filmmaking in the autumn of 1909 and produced nine films, including '' Whimsical Illusions'', in which he presents a magical effect on stage. At the same time, Gaston Méliès had moved the Méliès Manufacturing Company to Fort Lee, New Jersey. In 1910, Gaston established the Star Film Ranch, a studio in San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio ( ; Spanish for "Anthony of Padua, Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the List of Texas metropolitan areas, third-largest metropolitan area in Texa ...
, where he began to produce Western films, Westerns. By 1911, Gaston had renamed his branch of Star Films ''American Wildwest Productions'', and opened a studio in Southern California. He produced over 130 films from 1910 to 1912, and he was the primary source for fulfilling Star Films' obligation to Thomas Edison's company. From 1910 to 1912, Georges Méliès produced very few films.
In 1910, Méliès temporarily stopped making films because he preferred to create a big magic show ''Les Fantômes du Nil'', and he went on an expansive tour in Europe and North Africa. Later that year, Star Films signed an agreement with the Gaumont Film Company to distribute all of its films. In the autumn of 1910, Méliès made a deal with Charles Pathé that destroyed his film career. Méliès accepted a large amount of money to produce films, and in exchange, Pathé Frères
Pathé SAS (; styled as PATHÉ!) is a French major film production and distribution company, owning a number of cinema chains through its subsidiary Pathé Cinémas and television networks across Europe.
It is the name of a network of Fren ...
distributed and reserved the right to edit these films. Pathé also held the deed to both Méliès' home and his Montreuil studio as part of the deal. Méliès immediately began production on more elaborate films, and the two that he produced in 1911 were ''Baron Munchausen's Dream'' and ''The Diabolical Church Window''. Despite the extravagance of these ''féeries'' that had been extremely popular just a decade before, both films failed financially.
In 1912, Méliès continued making ambitious films, most notably with the ''féerie'' ''The Conquest of the Pole''. Although inspired by such contemporary events as Robert Peary's expedition to the North Pole in 1909 and Roald Amundsen's expedition to the South Pole in 1911, the film also included such fantastic elements as a griffin-headed aerobus and a snow giant that was operated by 12 stage hands as well as elements reminiscent of Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright.
His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...
and some of the same "fantastic voyage" themes as ''A Trip to the Moon
''A Trip to the Moon'' ( , ) is a 1902 French science-fiction adventure trick film written, directed, and produced by Georges Méliès. Inspired by the Jules Verne novel ''From the Earth to the Moon'' (1865) and its sequel '' Around the Moon ...
'' and '' The Impossible Voyage''. Unfortunately, ''Conquest of the Pole'' was not profitable, and Pathé decided to exercise its right to edit Méliès's films from this point.
One of Méliès' later ''féeries'' was ''Cinderella or the Glass Slipper'', a 54-minute retelling of the Cinderella legend, shot with new deep focus lenses, outdoors instead of against theatrical backdrops. Pathé hired Méliès's longtime rival Ferdinand Zecca to trim the film to 33 minutes, and it too was unprofitable. After similar experiences with ''The Knight of the Snows'' and ''The Voyage of the Bourrichon Family'' in late 1912, Méliès broke his contract with Pathé.
Meanwhile, Gaston Méliès had taken his family and a film crew of over twenty people to Tahiti in the summer of 1912. For the rest of that year and well into 1913, he traveled throughout the South Pacific and Asia, and sent film footage back to his son in New York City. The footage was often damaged or otherwise unusable, and Gaston was no longer able to fulfill Star Films' obligation to Thomas Edison's company. By the end of his travels, Gaston Méliès had lost $50,000 and had to sell the American branch of Star Films to Vitagraph Studios. Gaston eventually returned to Europe and died in 1915. He and Georges Méliès were not on speaking terms following his return to Europe.
When Méliès broke his contract with Pathé in 1913, he had nothing with which to cover his indebtedness to that company. Although a Moratorium (law), moratorium declared at the onset of World War I prevented Pathé from taking possession of his home and the Montreuil studio, Méliès was bankrupt and unable to continue making films. In his memoirs, he attributes what Miriam Rosen describes as "his own inability to adapt to the rental system" with Pathé and other companies, his brother Gaston's poor financial decisions, and the horrors of World War I as the main reasons that he stopped making movies. The final crisis was the death of Méliès' first wife, Eugénie Génin, in May 1913, leaving him alone to raise their twelve-year-old son, André. The war shut the Théâtre Robert-Houdin for a year, and Méliès left Paris with his two children for several years.
In 1917, the French Army turned the main studio building at his Montreuil property into a hospital for wounded soldiers. Méliès and his family then turned the second studio set into a theatrical stage and performed over 24 revues there until 1923. During the war, the French Army confiscated over four hundred of Star Films' original prints and melted them down to recover silver and celluloid, the latter of which the army used to make shoe heels. In 1923, the Théâtre Robert-Houdin was torn down to rebuild the Boulevard Haussmann. That same year Pathé was finally able to take over Star Films and the Montreuil studio. In a rage, Méliès burned all of his film negatives stored at the Montreuil studio, as well as most of the sets and costumes. As a result, many of his films do not exist today. Nonetheless, just over two hundred Méliès films have been preserved, and have been available on DVD since December 2011.
Rediscovery and final years
Méliès was largely forgotten and financially ruined by December 1925, when he married his long-time mistress, the actress Jehanne d'Alcy. The couple scraped together a living by working at a small candy and toy stand d'Alcy owned in the main hall of the Gare Montparnasse.
Around the same time, the gradual rediscovery of Méliès's career began. In 1924, the journalist Georges-Michel Coissac managed to track him down and interview him for a book on cinema history. Coissac, who hoped to underline the importance of French pioneers to early film, was the first film historian to demonstrate Méliès's importance to the industry. In 1926, spurred on by Coissac's book, the magazine ''Ciné-Journal'' located Méliès, now working at the Gare Montparnasse, and commissioned a memoir from him. By the late 1920s, several journalists had begun to research Méliès and his life's work, creating new interest in him. As his prestige began to grow in the film world, he was given more recognition and in December 1929, a gala retrospective of his work was held at the Salle Pleyel. In his memoirs, Méliès said that at the event he "experienced one of the most brilliant moments of his life."
Eventually Georges Méliès was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur, the medal of which was presented to him in October 1931 by Lumière brothers, Louis Lumière. Lumière himself said that Méliès was the "creator of the cinematic spectacle." However, the enormous amount of praise that he was receiving did not help his livelihood or ameliorate his poverty. In a letter written to French filmmaker Eugène Lauste, Méliès wrote that "luckily enough, I am strong and in good health. But it is hard to work 14 hours a day without getting my Sundays or holidays, in an icebox in winter and a furnace in summer."
In 1932, the Cinema Society arranged a place for Méliès, his granddaughter Madeleine and Jeanne d'Alcy at La Maison de Retraite du Cinéma, the film industry's retirement home in Orly. Méliès was greatly relieved to be admitted to the home and wrote to an American journalist: "My best satisfaction in all is to be sure not to be one day ''without bread and home''!" In Orly, Méliès worked with several younger directors on scripts for films that never came to be made. These included a new version of Baron Munchausen with Hans Richter (artist), Hans Richter and a film that was to be titled ''Le Fantôme du métro'' (''Phantom of the Metro'') with Henri Langlois, Georges Franju, Marcel Carné and Jacques Prévert. He also acted in a few advertisements with Prévert in his later years.
Langlois and Franju had met Méliès in 1935 with René Clair, and in 1936, they rented an abandoned building on the property of the Orly retirement home to store their collection of film prints. They then entrusted the key to the building to Méliès and he became the first conservator of what became the Cinémathèque Française. Although he never was able to make another film after 1912 or stage another theatrical performance after 1923, he continued to draw, write to and advise younger film and theatrical admirers until the end of his life.
By late 1937, Méliès had become very ill and Langlois arranged for him to be admitted to the Léopold Bellan Hospital in Paris. Langlois had become close to him, and he and Franju visited him shortly before his death. When they arrived, Méliès showed them one of his last drawings of a champagne bottle with the cork popped and bubbling over. He then told them: "Laugh, my friends. Laugh with me, laugh for me, because I dream for you." Georges Méliès died of cancer on 21 January 1938 at the age of 76—just hours after the passing of Émile Cohl, another great French film pioneer—and was buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Tributes
Walt Disney, on being presented with the Legion of Honour in 1936, expressed gratitude to Méliès and his fellow pioneer Émile Cohl, saying they "discovered the means of placing poetry within the reach of the man in the street."
The music videos for Queen (band), Queen's 1995 single "Heaven for Everyone", The Smashing Pumpkins 1996 single "Tonight, Tonight (The Smashing Pumpkins song), Tonight, Tonight" , and Carly Rae Jepsen's 2022 single The Loneliest Time (song), "The Loneliest Time" were highly inspired by Georges Méliès's films ''A Trip to the Moon
''A Trip to the Moon'' ( , ) is a 1902 French science-fiction adventure trick film written, directed, and produced by Georges Méliès. Inspired by the Jules Verne novel ''From the Earth to the Moon'' (1865) and its sequel '' Around the Moon ...
'' (1902) and '' The Impossible Voyage'' (1904).
Terry Gilliam has called Méliès "the first great film magician," adding: "His joyous sense of fun and ability to astound were a big influence on both my early animations and then my live-action films… Of course, Méliès still has a tight creative grip on me."
Méliès was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2015.["2015 SF&F Hall of Fame Inductees & James Gunn Fundraiser"]
12 June 2015. Locus Publications. Retrieved 16 July 2015.[ He was inducted into the Visual Effects Society Hall of Fame in 2017. On 3 May 2018, the first ever virtual reality interactive Google doodle honoured Méliès, which contains themes of his many films.
A picture of Méliès flew on board Artemis 1 which orbited the Moon in 2022.]
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
The 2007 novel ''The Invention of Hugo Cabret'' by Brian Selznick centres on the later life of Méliès. It was adapted into the 2011 film Hugo (film), ''Hugo'' by Martin Scorsese, where Méliès is played by Sir Ben Kingsley.[ The film version includes reconstructions of some of the fantastical stage sets which appeared in Méliès's early films.]
Productions
Due to a variety of factors, only roughly 200 out of over 500 Méliès' films remain in existence today. These factors include Méliès' destruction of his original negatives, the French army's confiscation of his prints and the typical deterioration of the majority of films made in the silent era. Occasionally a lost Méliès film will be discovered, but the majority that were preserved come from the U.S. Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
, due to Gaston Méliès
Gaston Méliès (; February 12, 1852 – April 9, 1915) was a French film director who worked primarily in the United States. He was the brother of the film director Georges Méliès.
Biography
Gaston and the third and elder Méliès brother, ...
submitting paper prints of each frame of all new Star Films in order to preserve copyright when he set up the American branch of Star Films in 1902.
See also
* Georges Méliès bibliography
* Maison de la Magie (Blois)
* Segundo de Chomón
Notes
References
Sources
* Richard Abel (cultural historian), Abel, Richard (ed.) (2005).
Encyclopedia of Early Cinema
', London/New York: Routledge
*
*
*
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* Karzan Kardozi. ''100 Years of Cinema, 100 Directors, Vol 1: Georges Méliès''. Xazalnus Publication, Sulaymaniyah, 2020.
*
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External links
*
Official Georges Méliès website
Museo Méliès and Cinema Collection, new art pieces every week, private collection in Spanish
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Index des Films avec Georges Méliès
Cinémathèque Méliès (Les Amis de Georges Méliès)
Georges Méliès daily in-depth reviews of individual Méliès films
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