''The Kingdom of the Fairies'' (french: Le Royaume des fées), initially released in the United States as ''Fairyland, or the Kingdom of the Fairies'' and in Great Britain as ''The Wonders of the Deep, or Kingdom of the Fairies'',
[ is a 1903 French ]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 ...
.
Production
The film historian 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 was ...
suggested that the film was freely adapted from ''La Biche au Bois'', a popular ''féerie
''Féerie'', sometimes translated as "fairy play", was a French theatrical genre known for fantasy plots and spectacular visuals, including lavish scenery and mechanically worked stage effects. ''Féeries'' blended music, dancing, pantomime, and ...
'' by the brothers Goignard, which had been first produced in March 1845 at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin
The Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin is a venerable theatre and opera house at 18, Boulevard Saint-Martin in the 10th arrondissement of Paris.
History
It was first built very rapidly in 1781 under the direction of (1726–1810) to house th ...
and which was frequently revived throughout the nineteenth century. A publication on Méliès's films by the Centre national du cinéma
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 eccentricit ...
cites Charles Perrault
Charles Perrault ( , also , ; 12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was an iconic 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 ...
's story "Sleeping Beauty
''Sleeping Beauty'' (french: La belle au bois dormant, or ''The Beauty in the Sleeping Forest''; german: Dornröschen, or ''Little Briar Rose''), also titled in English as ''The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods'', is a fairy tale about a princess cu ...
" as the most direct inspiration for the film, with the seven fairies in that tale reduced to four.[
The film's cast includes ]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 ...
as Prince Bel-Azor, Marguerite Thévenard as Princess Azurine, and Bleuette Bernon
Bleuette Bernon (6 June 1878 – 15 June 1937) was a French film actress who appeared in at least five films made by Georges Méliès around the turn of the 20th century. The earliest films, made before 1900, were usually without plot and had a ...
as the fairy Aurora. Sadoul, examining a production still from the film, identified the actor Durafour as a supporting player.[
While most of the film was shot indoors, the nuptial cortege scene near the end was filmed outdoors in Méliès's garden, with a real horse.][ Special effects in the film were created with ]stage machinery
Stage machinery, also known as stage mechanics, comprises the mechanical devices used to create special effects in theatrical productions.
See also
* Scenic design
Scenic design (also known as scenography, stage design, or set design) is the ...
, rolling panorama
A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...
s, miniature models, pyrotechnics
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. ...
, substitution splices, superimposition
Superimposition is the placement of one thing over another, typically so that both are still evident.
Graphics
In graphics, superimposition is the placement of an image or video on top of an already-existing image or video, usually to add to t ...
s, and dissolves.[
]
Release
''The Kingdom of the Fairies'' was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 483–498 in its catalogues.[ (In Méliès's numbering system, films were listed and numbered according to their order of production, and each catalogue number denotes about 20 meters of film.) The film was registered for American copyright at the ]Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
on 3 September 1903.[
According to the Méliès scholar John Frazer, the film was "the most ambitious Star Film production to date" and "was widely distributed and heavily promoted."] An original film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...
was prepared for the film's projection in larger cities.[ As with at least 4% of Méliès's entire output (including such films as '' A Trip to the Moon'', '']The Impossible Voyage
''The Impossible Voyage'' (french: Le Voyage à travers l'impossible), also known as ''An Impossible Voyage'' and ''Whirling the Worlds'', is a 1904 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès. Inspired by Jules Verne's play '' Journey Thr ...
'', ''The Rajah's Dream
''The Rajah's Dream'' (French: ''Le rêve du radjah ou La forêt enchantée'') is a short silent film created and released in 1900 and directed by Georges Méliès.
As with at least 4% of Méliès's entire output (including such films as '' A Tri ...
'', and ''The Barber of Seville
''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( it, Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione ) is an ''opera buffa'' in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was base ...
''), some prints were individually 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 ...
and sold at a higher price.
Reception
''The Kingdom of the Fairies'', like Méliès's similarly spectacular films '' A Trip to the Moon'' (1902) and ''The Impossible Voyage
''The Impossible Voyage'' (french: Le Voyage à travers l'impossible), also known as ''An Impossible Voyage'' and ''Whirling the Worlds'', is a 1904 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès. Inspired by Jules Verne's play '' Journey Thr ...
'' (1904), was one of the most popular films of the first few years of the twentieth century. When Thomas L. Tally debuted the film at his Lyric Theater in Los Angeles in 1903 (billing it as "Better than ''A Trip to the Moon''"), the ''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' 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."
The film theorist 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 theorist, critic and filmmaker, a co-founder of France's first film society, and, ...
called it "undoubtedly Méliès's best film, and in any case the most intensely poetic."
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 film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
and the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
.
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kingdom of the Fairies, The
1903 films
French silent short films
1900s French-language films
French black-and-white films
Films directed by Georges Méliès
1903 short films
Films about fairies and sprites
Silent horror films