''The Devil in a Convent'' (French: ''Le Diable au couvent''), released in the UK as ''"The Sign of the Cross", or the Devil in a Convent'', is an 1899 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 ...

directed 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 ...

Themes

According to some film critics, ''The Devil in a Convent'' parodies monastic life, suggesting a satirical view of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. Méliès almost certainly agreed with the anti-ecclesiastic emotions prevalent during the

Dreyfus affair The Dreyfus affair (french: affaire Dreyfus, ) was a political scandal that divided the French Third Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francop ...

in 1898 and 1899; Méliès supported

Alfred Dreyfus Alfred Dreyfus ( , also , ; 9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935) was a French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most polarizing political dramas in modern French history. ...

's case, while the Church opposed it. Méliès made another religious satire, '' The Temptation of Saint Anthony'', in the same year, as well as his strongly pro-Dreyfus film series '' The Dreyfus Affair''.

Production

The film may have been inspired in part by the

phantasmagoria Phantasmagoria (, also fantasmagorie, fantasmagoria) was a form of horror theatre that (among other techniques) used one or more magic lanterns to project frightening images, such as skeletons, demons, and ghosts, onto walls, smoke, or semi- ...

productions of the French magician

Étienne-Gaspard Robert Étienne-Gaspard Robert (15 June 1763 – 2 July 1837), often known by the stage name of "Robertson", was a prominent Liégeois (now part of Belgium) physicist, stage magician and influential developer of phantasmagoria. He was described by C ...

, known by the

stage name A stage name is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers—such as actors, comedians, singers, and musicians. Such professional aliases are adopted for a wide variety of reasons and they may be similar, or nearly identical, to an individu ...

"Robertson". Méliès himself plays the Devil in the film. ''The Devil in a Convent'' was likely the first Méliès film to take advantage of dissolves as a transition effect.

Release

''The Devil in a Convent'' was released 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 185–187 in its catalogues, which also specified the film's three scenes (''1. Les nonnes, le sermon. 2. Les démons, le sabbat. 3. Le clergé, l'exorcisme''). In 2010, the Cinémathèque Basque received a donation of a box of

35mm 35 mm may refer to: * 135 film, a type of still photography format commonly referred to as 35 mm film * 35 mm movie film, a type of motion picture film stock * 35MM 35 mm may refer to: * 135 film, a type of still photography format ...

films, recovered by a private individual in 1995 from a garbage bin in

Bilbao ) , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = 275 px , map_caption = Interactive map outlining Bilbao , pushpin_map = Spain Basque Country#Spain#Europe , pushpin_map_caption ...

. The box was found to contain 32 films, including

hand-colored Hand-colouring (or hand-coloring) refers to any method of manually adding colour to a monochrome photograph, generally either to heighten the realism of the image or for artistic purposes. Hand-colouring is also known as hand painting or overpa ...

prints of ''The Devil in a Convent'' and another 1899 Méliès film, '' The Mysterious Knight''. Previously, these two films had only been available in

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

copies. The hand-colored print of ''The Devil in a Convent'' was judged to be in too advanced a state of decomposition to be restored completely; however, the third scene of the film was in good enough condition to be restored. Both films were entrusted to the

Filmoteca de Catalunya The Filmoteca de Catalunya is a film archive located in Catalunya, Spain, aiming at the preservation of film and the dissemination of audiovisual and film culture. The head office and public rooms (cinemas, exhibition rooms, library) are located ...

for restoration, under the supervision of two Méliès scholars, Roland Cosandey and Jacques Malthête.

References

External links

*
The Devil in a Convent - Movie short
* 1899 films 1899 horror films French silent short films French black-and-white films Films directed by Georges Méliès Demons in film The Devil in film French horror films 1899 short films Silent horror films 1890s French films {{1890s-horror-film-stub