''Le Voyage de Gulliver à Lilliput et chez les Géants'', released in the United States as ''Gulliver's Travels Among the Lilliputians and the Giants'' and in the United Kingdom as ''Gulliver's Travels—In the land of the Lilliputians and the Giants'', is a 1902 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 Sound recording and reproduction, 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) ...

directed by Georges Méliès, based on

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dubl ...

's 1726 novel '' Gulliver's Travels''.

Production

Méliès himself plays Gulliver in the film. The visual differences of scale between Gulliver and the countries he visits were created using

multiple exposure In photography and cinematography, a multiple exposure is the superimposition of two or more exposures to create a single image, and double exposure has a corresponding meaning in respect of two images. The exposure values may or may not be id ...

s and miniature models; Méliès uses substitution splices and careful exposure design to merge the various elements and give them a sense of apparently seamless action. Some scenes were filmed outdoors, in Méliès's garden in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, so that the camera could be far away enough from the Lilliputians to make them look small.

Release and legacy

''Gulliver's Travels Among the Lilliputians and the Giants'' was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 426–429 in its catalogues. In early 1903, the

Edison Manufacturing Company The Edison Manufacturing Company, originally registered as the United Edison Manufacturing Company and often known as simply the Edison Company, was organized by inventor and entrepreneur Thomas Edison and incorporated in New York City in May 188 ...

sold duplicated prints of ''Gulliver's Travels Among the Lilliputians and the Giants'', as well as of Méliès's other films ''

Joan of Arc Joan of Arc (french: link=yes, Jeanne d'Arc, translit= �an daʁk} ; 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronat ...

'' and ''

Robinson Crusoe ''Robinson Crusoe'' () is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a tra ...

'', in the United States.

Siegmund Lubin Siegmund Lubin (born Zygmunt Lubszyński, April 20, 1851 – September 11, 1923) was an American motion picture pioneer who founded the Lubin Manufacturing Company (1902–1917) of Philadelphia. Biography Siegmund Lubin was born as Zygmunt Lu ...

also advertised a ''Gulliver's Travels'' film in 1903; this may have been an attempt by Lubin to ride on the popularity of Méliès's version. In 1988,

Jean-Pierre Mocky Jean-Pierre Mocky (6 July 1929 – 8 August 2019), pseudonym of Jean-Paul Adam Mokiejewski, was a French film director, actor, screenwriter and producer. Life and career Mocky was born in Nice, France to Polish immigrant parents, Jeanne Zylinska ...

directed ''Gulliver'', a three-minute remake of Méliès's film, as part of the TF1 television program ''Méliès 88''. At the time, the film was one of 158 Méliès films presumed

lost Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography *Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland * Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...

, but for which written

scenario In the performing arts, a scenario (, ; ; ) is a synoptical collage of an event or series of actions and events. In the ''commedia dell'arte'', it was an outline of entrances, exits, and action describing the plot of a play, and was literally pi ...

s survived; Mocky based his remake on Méliès's original scenario, but used a style and tone markedly different from Méliès's works. A stencil-colored print of the film is held at the Cineteca di Milano. It is unknown whether Méliès authorized the coloring, as the stencil process is highly unusual in his oeuvre; normally, his films were colored using an entirely freehand method supervised by the colorist

Elisabeth Thuillier Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to: People * Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name) * Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist Ships * HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships * ''Elisabeth'' (sc ...

Flicker Alley Cecil Court is a pedestrian street with Victorian shop-frontages in Westminster, England, linking Charing Cross Road and St Martin's Lane. Since the 1930s, it has been known as the new Booksellers' Row. Early background One of the older thoroug ...

released the film on DVD in the US in 2008.

Reception

In their study of film adaptations of British literature, Gregory M. Colón Semenza and Robert J. Hasenfratz called ''Gulliver's Travels Among the Lilliputians and the Giants'' a "gorgeous film" that "remains very watchable due to its sheer imaginative and visual invention".

References

External links

* {{Georges Méliès 1902 films French black-and-white films French silent short films Films about giants Films based on Gulliver's Travels Films directed by Georges Méliès 1900s rediscovered films Articles containing video clips Rediscovered French films French fantasy films 1900s fantasy films Silent horror films