''Le Sorcier'', sold in the United States as ''The Witch's Revenge'' and in Britain as ''The Sorcerer's Revenge'', is a 1903 French
silent trick film by
Georges Méliès
Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès (; ; 8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938) was a French illusionist, actor, and film director. He led many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema.
Méliès was well known for the use of ...
. It was sold by Méliès's
Star Film Company
The Manufacture de films pour cinématographes, often known as Star Film, was a French film production company run by the illusionist and film director Georges Méliès.
History
On 28 December 1895, Méliès attended the celebrated first publi ...
and is numbered 473–475 in its catalogues.
Plot
In a courtly setting, a king condemns an old sorcerer to be chained to a post and tortured. The sorcerer, begging for mercy, attempts to entertain the court with magic, conjuring up a classical ''
tableau vivant'' and making a chair spin of its own accord. However, the king is steadfast. Just as he is about to chain up the sorcerer, however, his attendants transform into assistants of the sorcerer, and chain the king up instead. The sorcerer and the whole court link arms, and they all dance away happily.
Production
Méliès plays the sorcerer, whose magic is created using a combination of
stage machinery,
trap doors,
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 th ...
s,
multiple exposures, and
dissolves.
References
External links
*
French black-and-white films
Films directed by Georges Méliès
French silent short films
Trick films
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