''The Melomaniac'' (french: Le Mélomane) is a 1903 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès.

Plot

A music master leads his band to a field where five

telegraph line Electrical telegraphs were point-to-point text messaging systems, primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems ...

s are strung on

utility pole A utility pole is a column or post typically made out of wood used to support overhead power lines and various other public utilities, such as electrical cable, fiber optic cable, and related equipment such as transformers and street lights. I ...

s. Hoisting up a giant

treble clef A clef (from French: 'key') is a musical symbol used to indicate which notes are represented by the lines and spaces on a musical stave. Placing a clef on a stave assigns a particular pitch to one of the five lines, which defines the pit ...

, he turns the set of lines into a giant

musical staff In Western musical notation, the staff (US and UK)"staff" in the Collin ...

. He then uses copies of his own head to spell out the tune for "

God Save the King "God Save the King" is the national and/or royal anthem of the United Kingdom, most of the Commonwealth realms, their territories, and the British Crown Dependencies. The author of the tune is unknown and it may originate in plainchant, b ...

," and his band joins in.

Production and release

Méliès himself plays the lead role of the music master. The superimposition effects in ''The Mélomaniac'', allowing multiple Méliès heads to appear on the staff, were created by a

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 ...

technique requiring the same strip of film to be run through the camera seven times. The rest of the film's special effects were created with substitution splices. The film was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 479–480 in its catalogues. 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 ...

on 30 June 1903. The French film scholars Jacques Malthête and Laurent Mannoni believe ''The Mélomaniac'' to be Méliès's most famous

trick film In the early history of cinema, trick films were short silent films designed to feature innovative special effects. History The trick film genre was developed by Georges Méliès in some of his first cinematic experiments, and his works remain th ...

, and a Méliès guide 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 eccentricit ...

judges that the film merits that position. Film critic William B. Parrill rates it "innovative and creative".

References

External links

* Films directed by Georges Méliès 1903 films French silent short films French black-and-white films 1900s French films {{1900s-France-film-stub