''The Four Troublesome Heads'' (, literally "A Man of Heads"), also known as ''Four Heads Are Better Than One'', is an 1898 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 ...

Plot

A magician enters the frame and stands between two tables. He removes his own head and puts it on one of the tables, where it starts talking and looking around. The magician repeats the action twice, with a new head appearing on his shoulders each time, until four identical heads are presented at once. The magician then plays a banjo, and all four heads sing along. He then bashes two of the heads with his banjo over their obnoxious singing, making them disappear. He then takes off his head and tosses it aside before taking the other head from the second table, tossing it in the air and it lands back onto his neck. He bows to the viewers, bids them farewell and then strolls off.

Production

Méliès himself plays the magician in the film, which takes advantage of his sense of rhythm, his tendency for elegant gestural movements, and his talent for

mime A mime artist, or simply mime (from Greek language, Greek , , "imitator, actor"), is a person who uses ''mime'' (also called ''pantomime'' outside of Britain), the acting out of a story through body motions without the use of speech, as a the ...

. ''The Four Troublesome Heads'' features one of the first known uses of

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 ...

of objects on a black background on film, a special effect Méliès went on to use prolifically. It also marks the first known time Méliès filmed living heads or other body parts separated from the rest of the body, which would become a favourite motif of his. Here, the trick was handled using

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 four separate exposures.

Release and reception

The film was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 167 in its catalogues. An illegal print of the film, copied without authorization from Méliès, was released in America in 1903 by

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 ...

under the title ''Four Heads Are Better Than One''. Film critic William B. Parrill, reviewing silent films in the 2010s, called it "doubtless a wonder when it appeared, the first of a wonderful comic line which produced not only detachable body parts but also the replication of any number of magical reproductions of éliès'sown image."

References

External links

* 1898 films French silent short films Films directed by Georges Méliès French black-and-white films 1898 short films 1890s French films Trick films Articles containing video clips {{1890s-France-film-stub