''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 silent

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 ...

directed by

Georges Méliès Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès ( , ; 8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938) was a French magic (illusion), magician, toymaker, actor, and filmmaker. He led many technical and narrative developments in the early days of film, cinema, primarily in th ...

, based on

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer, essayist, satirist, and Anglican cleric. In 1713, he became the Dean (Christianity), dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and was given the sobriquet "Dean Swi ...

's 1726 novel ''

Gulliver's Travels ''Gulliver's Travels'', originally titled ''Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships'', is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clerg ...

''.

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 ide ...

s and

miniature model A scale model is a physical model that is similarity (geometry), geometrically similar to an object (known as the ''prototype''). Scale models are generally smaller than large prototypes such as vehicles, buildings, or people; but may be lar ...

s; Méliès uses

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 t ...

s 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 Montreuil (), also known unofficially as Montreuil-sous-Bois (), is a Communes of France, commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the Kilometre zero, centre of Paris, in the Seine-Saint-Denis department and in the Mét ...

, 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 under the name of the United Edison Manufacturing Company and often known as simply the Edison Company, was organized by scientist / inventor and entrepreneur, Thomas A. Edison (1847–1 ...

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 ( ; ; – 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 Coronation of the French monarch, coronation of Charles VII o ...

'' and ''

Robinson Crusoe ''Robinson Crusoe'' ( ) is an English adventure novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. Written with a combination of Epistolary novel, epistolary, Confessional writing, confessional, and Didacticism, didactic forms, the ...

'', in the United States.

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

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. Early life and education Mocky was born on 6 July 1929 in Nice, France, to Polish immigra ...

directed ''Gulliver'', a three-minute

remake A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the same s ...

of Méliès's film, as part of the

TF1 TF1 (; standing for ''Télévision Française 1'') is a French commercial television network owned by TF1 Group, controlled by the Bouygues conglomerate. TF1's average market share of 24% makes it the most popular domestic network. TF1 is part ...

television program ''Méliès 88''. At the time, the film was one of 158 Méliès films presumed lost, but for which written

scenario In the performing arts, a scenario (, ; ; from Italian , "that which is pinned to the scenery") 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 actio ...

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. Flicker Alley released the film on DVD in the US in 2008.

Reception

In their study of

film adaptation A film adaptation transfers the details or story of an existing source text, such as a novel, into a feature film. This transfer can involve adapting most details of the source text closely, including characters or plot points, or the original sou ...

s 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 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 French horror films Trick films