''The Black Imp'' (french: Le Diable noir) is a 1905 French

short Short may refer to: Places * Short (crater), a lunar impact crater on the near side of the Moon * Short, Mississippi, an unincorporated community * Short, Oklahoma, a census-designated place People * Short (surname) * List of people known as ...

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when ...

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 683–685 in its catalogues.

Synopsis

A mischievous magic imp cavorts around inside of a hotel room, jumping from the bed to the table, and then, from the chair to an expensive couch. A respectable resident arrives escorted by the landlady and her husband, and before long, strange things begin to occur. Articles of furniture magically move from place to place, and even disappear entirely before their eyes. In the end, the mischievous imp materializes before the startled guests, causing a major emotional shock.

Production

Méliès appears in the film as the distinguished hotel guest. The special effects include

pyrotechnic Pyrotechnics is the science and craft of creating such things as fireworks, safety matches, oxygen candles, explosive bolts and other fasteners, parts of automotive airbags, as well as gas-pressure blasting in mining, quarrying, and demolition. ...

techniques as well as many

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; there are 61 substitution splices in the moving chair sequence alone. John Frazer's 1979 book-length study of Méliès, and a 1981 guide to Méliès's work from the

Centre national de la cinématographie Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

, both devote sections to ''The Black Imp''. The compilers of the latter book report that two different versions of the film appear to exist: the copy viewed for their analysis differs from Frazer's summary in plot outline, and even in the number of chairs that are involved in the chair sequence. In an April 1979 article in ''

Cahiers du cinéma ''Cahiers du Cinéma'' (, ) is a French film magazine co-founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca.Itzkoff, Dave (9 February 2009''Cahiers Du Cinéma Will Continue to Publish''The New York TimesMacnab, Ge ...

'', film director Marie-Christine Questerbert described ''The Black Imp'' as a classic example of Méliès's way of evoking disorder, creating proliferation from simple visual motifs.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Black Imp French black-and-white films Films directed by Georges Méliès French silent short films 1905 short films