''The Dream of an Opium Fiend'' (french: Le Rêve d'un fumeur d'opium) is a 1908 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 ...

credited to and featuring

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 1081–1085 in its catalogues.

Plot

In an opium den, an attendant offers a well-dressed gentleman a pipe of opium. The gentleman dreams he is at home, and that his wife and maidservant are pouring him a large glass of beer. However, before he can drink it, the beer flies upward through the window to Phoebe, the Moon goddess, seated on her crescent in the sky. The dream shifts to imagine the Man in the Moon flying through the sky, to meet the beer glass as it travels through space. The dream shifts back to the gentleman's dining room, where he attempts to have a drink with Phoebe and to flirt with her. However, first the beer glass, then Phoebe herself, magically jump around the room, evading the gentleman's attempts at control. Just as the gentleman thinks he has chased Phoebe into his arms, she turns into a grotesque clown. The clown teases the frantic gentleman as the dream comes to an abrupt end.

Production

Méliès plays the Chinese opium den attendant in the film, and a Mademoiselle Bodson plays the maidservant. An analysis in a Centre national de la cinématographie (CNC) guide to Méliès's films concludes that the film was probably supervised by a colleague of Méliès, an actor known as Manuel. Nonetheless, it features both Méliès and several motifs common in Méliès's earlier films; for example, here as elsewhere in Méliès's filmography, the Moon is personified both as a beautiful woman and a grimacing head.

Special effect Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, 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 imagined events in a story or virtual wor ...

s in the film were created with stage machinery, rolling scenery,

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. The CNC analysis notes that although this title suggests '' Dream of a Rarebit Fiend'', a 1906 American trick film by

Edwin S. Porter Edwin Stanton Porter (April 21, 1870 – April 30, 1941) was an American film pioneer, most famous as a producer, director, studio manager and cinematographer with the Edison Manufacturing Company and the Famous Players Film Company. Of over 2 ...

, the plots are completely different. Porter's film, on the other hand, strongly implies a Méliès influence, particularly recalling ''

The Bewitched Inn ''The Bewitched Inn'' (French: ''L'auberge ensorcelée'') is an 1897 French short silent trick film directed by Georges Méliès. It was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 122–123 in its catalogs. Plot A traveler arrive ...

'' (1897) and '' The Inn Where No Man Rests'' (1903). A print of the film survives, though a section may be missing from the end.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dream Of An Opium Fiend 1908 films 1908 short films French black-and-white films Films directed by Georges Méliès French silent short films Films about opium