The Films of Georges Melies: Part V

The Pillar of Fire
A gorgeously hand-tinted print of this film is presented on the Melies DVD set, heightening the fantastic elements that Melies is showcasing here. A devil-like figure dances about, waving a torch over a pit of fire, out of which rises a woman, who proceeds to perform a Serpentine dance. It is interesting to note the difference in the use of the Serpentine dance in the film compared with that used by Alice Guy. Melies heightens the fantasy element by having the dancer conjured up by a devil, and includes such frenetic action and movements that the whole screen seems to come alive through the motion alone. The use of hand-tinting also emphasizes the place of the film within the “Cinema of Attractions” mode, offering a full experience for viewers, who would have most likely encountered the film in fairgrounds.

“Dreyfus” films
A series of tableaux depicting events in the trial of Captain Dreyfus, this ambitious series of films is one of the most un-typical in Melies’ work. The films are difficult to comprehend without a knowledge of who the characters are. While they would have undoubtedly been more familiar to contemporary audiences, it is still difficult to imagine the films playing without some kind of descriptive narration. There are some remarkable moments, such as the scene in which a fight breaks out among reporters, who are seen running toward the camera to create a really claustrophobic sense of being crowded in to the tiny room. Some of the scenes are depicted with a fair amount of realism, while others are clearly staged in front of painted flats. Overall, this series was an extremely ambitious and daring undertaking, and Melies’ defense of Dreyfus is clear in his casting himself in the role of Dreyfus’ defense attorney.

The Magic Lantern
A very self-reflexive film, this depicts two characters viewing moving pictures through a Magic Lantern device. At one point, of the characters is able to see himself on the screen. They also open the Magic Lantern up, and various characters come out from the device. This may be one of the earliest examples of characters in a film interacting with a screen image (a “film-within-a-film”, essentially).

Hilarious Posters
More than any of the other films screened, this one creates the most elaborate manipulations of space within the frame. A giant advertising space, lined with posters, comes to life, with each of the illustrated characters “acting out” the advertisements they appear in. Eventually, they “break out” of the ad, and police chase them around, before becoming “trapped” in the ad themselves. There are a number of levels of screen space and direction, with three separate rows of advertisements across the screen, as well as foreground and background dimensions.

Palace of the Arabian Nights
An elaborate fantasy, Melies develops a strong narrative thrust in this film which is more involved than most of his fantasy films up to this point. It follows a journey into an elaborate palace to retrieve treasure, and the Prince’s encounters with various obstacles along the way. The film is notable for demonstrating the move toward narrative cinema, away from the “Cinema of Attractions” model, while also finding room for isolated moments of spectacle. The elaborate set design, costumes, and placement of actors and props within the frame show the lengths that Melies was going to in order to create a fully-realized fantasy world. The detail in the painted sets, for instance, lends to the overall universe that Melies transports viewers into.

The Films of Georges Melies: Part IV

Adventures of William Tell
A fascinating use of stop-motion, in this film a clown puts together a human figure, which comes to life to torment the clown, who plans to perform a “William Tell” routine. The figure beats the clown, whose form disappears underneath his costume, then-after the figure has left-reappears, gathers himself, and exits the scene. It is a rough film, filled with roughhouse and knockabout physical business, and playing with audience expectation about how the routine will play out.

The Astronomer’s Dream
Anticipating the kind of lunar fantasy he would explore in A Trip to the Moon, Melies here presents an astronomer who falls asleep while observing the moon through a telescope. It comes dangerously close to his observatory window, even devouring him at one point. There are other various transformations that take place, including the window being replaced by a stone wall. This is one of the most elaborate manipulations of space and spatial continuity that Melies has demonstrated to this point. By changing the position of the moon, he suggests a far greater depth to the screen than is actually there.

Four Troublesome Heads
A delightful comedy piece, Melies here plays a musician-singer who removes his head three times, placing them on the table, and singing along together. The remarkable aspect of this film is the timing that Melies achieves with four separate film elements playing together, and really creating an illusion that the action is all taking place at the same time within the frame.

Temptation of St. Anthony
This film could be read as religious satire or criticism, as it presents a very strong emphasis on the women figures who “tempt” St. Anthony, and at one point, the Christ figure on the cross transforms into a woman. There is an element of almost vaudeville-like humor in the scenes in which the women tease St. Anthony, dancing around him, and disappearing and reappearing around him in comic fashion. Finally, St. Anthony himself is presented as an almost comic figure, with exaggerated makeup and movements, all of which lead the viewer to suspect that Melies was presenting a critique or possibly a satire on the religious elements he depicts here.

The Films of Georges Melies: Part III

Divers at Work on the Wreck of the “Maine”
Here is an interesting example of Melies using special effects to create a kind of “documentary” short. We see divers pulling bodies out of the sunken ship (actually using dummies to stand in for the bodies), while Melies has used double-exposure to print images of the fish over top of the original image. This creates an unsettling effect, in that the grim and gruesome subject matter is played out on a painted backdrop, with clear special effects in use to help create the overall effect, reminding the viewer that what they are seeing is only a re-creation of the actual event. It becomes difficult, however, to separate that knowledge from the gruesomeness of the subject matter.

Panorama From Top of a Moving Train
One of the few cases of a “moving camera” in Melies’ work, the camera is here mounted on a moving train and takes a straight-ahead view of the journey. An interesting effect is achieved by having the train pass under low bridges, which creates an interesting spatial effect.

The Magician
A great example of a Melies trick film, we see here a magician with a magic box. As he leaps into the box, disappearing, he is transformed into a small clown, which then transforms into a taller one after jumping down from the table. There are also playful hints of sexuality as a statue is transformed into various women. Despite a static camera, the image is never a dull one, as frenetic action and constant cutting within the frame provide a continuous sense of movement.

The Famous Box Trick
A trick film with some moments of gruesome humor (a boy is split into “two” separate boys with an axe), Melies performs the lead role, focusing the audiences’ attention on his different movements, which provide a remarkable sense of visual rhythm. Working with the box as his center prop, he presents an interesting transformation between the human form and objects, such as transforming one of the boys into a piece of paper, which he then tears up.

The Films of Georges Melies: Part II

The Haunted Castle
Another stop-motion trick film, this one (taken from a hand-colored print) features a man in a haunted castle, with various transformations taking place around him (the chair disappears out from under him, and he encounters various spectral presences). It is interesting here how much movement Melies creates within the frame. Even though the camera itself is completely static, there is so much going on in the frame that it creates a strong illusion of rhythm and movement.

Surrender of Tournavos
A departure from the trick films, this is a staged, “newsreel”-style piece depicting a shoot out between soldiers. It is shot in a very straightforward manner, with understated performances. It is an interesting example of the diversity of Melies’ work from this period.

Between Calais and Dover
In some ways, this is a difficult film to respond to, as it was unclear to me exactly what effect Melies was trying to achieve. The film depicts a rough sea voyage, with a tilting stage to create the illusion of a rocking boat. The action itself is somewhat exaggerated, leading me to question whether Melies was exploring the comic potential of such a set-up. At the same time, its presentation is very straightforward, which suggests Melies was trying to depict the situation without exploiting the tricks for any kind of comic effect.

After the Ball
Another difficult film to analyze, this one seems to belong to a kind of “peepshow” tradition of “blue” movies so popular in this period. We see a woman undress and stand in a tub, where her maid proceeds to pour water on her then dry her off. Clearly intended for its erotic qualities, the film is yet another departure from Melies’ usual trick films. While Melies’ films are often filled with sexual elements, few are as explicit in their intention than this one.

The Films of Georges Melies: Part I

This is the first in a series of writings on the films of Georges Melies. As with the Films of Edwin S. Porter series, this will cover a number of titles from the director's filmography taken from films currently available for viewing. Some of these notes were taken during screenings of the films during a course on silent French cinema at NYU in fall 2009. I plan to expand and publish these notes in the future.

Playing Cards
Melies’ first film, this is shot in the tradition of similar subjects taken by both Lumiere and Guy. Melies appears in the film himself, hinting at the central acting roles he would play in future projects. The film exhibits none of the tricks that Melies would introduce and perfect in his later work. The film is shot from a static position, as with Melies’ other films, but lacks the kind of dynamic action and mise-en-scene that defines his later work.

The Terrible Night
A comedy short, this depicts a comic character trying to sleep while his bed is infested with bugs. It opens with a comically-exaggerated insect climbing up the bed and then up the wall, suggesting that Melies was already interested in exploring the fantastic elements of cinema. The exaggerated makeup of the character, as well as the simple set, suggest the stage origins of sketches like this one.

Vanishing Lady
An early film in the style with which Melies became best known, here he plays a magician performing a vanishing act with his female assistant. Where Melies deviates from the usual stage origins of this act is in his use of stop-motion, which becomes his trademark technique in his later work, in creating special effects (the vanishing lady not only disappears under the sheet, but also re-appears at one point as a skeleton). Both performers directly address the audience at the end of the film. In this subject, we see that Melies was interested in not just re-creating magic acts that could be performed on stage, but also in enhancing them with effects only possible through the camera.

A Nightmare
Another comedy short, this one is staged with an emphasis on special effects humor, as a sleeping man envisions a woman seated at the foot of his bed, who transforms in to a blackface banjo player and a clown. Melies cuts between these different transformations with stop-motion effects. He also plays with spatial perspective by bringing the small figure of the moon closer to the screen so that it appears to have giant proportions as it gets closer.

The Last Cartridges (1897)

THE LAST CARTRIDGES, an 1897 film by Georges Melies, represents one of the earliest instances of a painting serving as a direct inspiration for the subject of a film. Melies re-created on film the 1873 painting by Alphonse de Neuville, which depicted the attack on a house in Bazeille, during the Battle of Sedan of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.

Melies, and other early filmmakers, drew frequently upon historical events -- both contemporary and those in the recent and distant past -- as subjects for their films. What makes these subjects so compelling -- to audiences then and now -- is the use of the camera's capability for immediacy and authenticity, creating a vivid and visceral depiction of these events not possible in other media.

The Joy and Wonder of Melies

At the 7th Orphan Films Symposium, held at the School of Visual Arts Theatre, audiences had a rare treat to experience a Melies film the way it was meant to be seen.

The film was introduced by Matthew Solomon. The print was a gorgeous hand-colored one, although slightly incomplete at the beginning. Donald Sosin provided a splendid piano score, and Solomon read the film's narration, written by Melies himself.

There was nothing like the thrill as the lights went down, the piano music filling the theatre, and the storyteller's voice inviting the audience to get completely wrapped up in the exciting narrative. This is the way Melies was meant to be experienced. Listening to it this way, one could almost imagine themselves stepping into a dark auditorium at a carnival or fair at the turn of the last century, and being taken to new worlds of escapism, fantasy and excitement.

The film itself was the perfect combination of Melies' emphases on narrative and spectacle, integrated into an unforgettable whole. The story of Rip Van Winkle, familiar to viewers, provides a backdrop for the wonderful effects Melies creates, which are theatrical in nature but wholly unique to the cinematic form. The colors in the print recall the influence of the kind of heightened spectacle that audiences would have been familiar with from stage traditions of the time, recalling Charles Musser's points about the "intertextuality" of early cinema (and it was exciting to see the film with Musser in the audience, whose work has probably done more to influence my own writing on early film than any other).

Even though the film was more than 100 years old, it felt as fresh, magical and delightful as ever. It makes the viewer appreciate what a truly magical film can feel like. Recent efforts into the fantasy or spectacle forms have been abysmal failures at every level-lacking the wit, energy, ingenuity and pure joy of the worlds Melies takes viewers to again and again. I'm sure the old master would be delighted to know that his unique blend of comedy and magic, and narrative and spectacle, still hold the power to totally enchant and entrance audiences, as if they were still children listening with rapt attention to the fairy tales told by their parents. Indeed, that's about the only experience I can liken the viewing of a Melies film to. His films contain the ability to "entertain", in the truest sense of that word, more than any other artist in the medium.

The magic of Melies will never pass. His work is timeless, never dated, quaint or old-fashioned. As long as there is a capacity for joy and wonder in the world, Melies will never be irrelevant.

Tunneling the English Channel (1907)

One of Georges Melies' most prophetic of his pseudo-science fiction efforts, "Tunneling the English Channel" is a delightful combination of political satire and fantasy.

Made in 1907, the film is presented in a lavishly hand-colored print (although the print used for the recent "Melies: First Wizard of Cinema" collection begins with a rather rough, black and white copy and switches to a pristine, hand-colored source about halfway through. This was presumably pieced together from the best surviving elements). The films begins with a sort of split-screen set up, featuring the King of England and the President of France getting ready for bed. As they dream, visions of the building of the tunnel underneath the English channel play out. We see the construction of the tunnel on both the English and French sides, as well as the celebrations following the successful completion of the project. However, their dream turns to a nightmare when disaster strikes as two trains collide in the tunnel, waking both the King and the President from their dream. At this very moment, an engineer comes to see both men with plans to build a channel tunnel, and both leaders forcibly eject him from the scene!

Delightfully stylized moments occur throughout. The set representing the channel tunnel is very elaborate, with sand and silt underneath the tunnel, and the sea itself above, in which we see various submarines, fish, and other aquatic creatures moving about. Melies packs an incredible amount of visual detail into every frame.

Melies' fascination with industry and technology is present throughout. In Melies' narration, written to accompany the film, he goes in to great detail on the scientific and technological details of the construction. In his book "Flickers: A Century of Cinema" (1995), British critic Gilbert Adair notes that, technically speaking, "Tunneling the English Channel" offers a more daring vision of the future than Melies' more famous film, "A Trip to the Moon", in that-while travel to the moon became a reality 67 years after that film's release, the Chunnel did not become a reality until 88 years after the release of this film.

The ending of the film, with both leaders soured on the idea of a tunnel because of their nightmare, leads to a perfect comic close to the whole film. There are some moments of fun political satire throughout, such as the moment when the leaders' respective footmen mock their pompous march in a celebratory parade.

A delightful film on all counts, this lesser-seen Melies title deserves its place among his best work. It is available as part of the "Melies: First Wizard of Cinema" DVD set, available from Flicker Alley, which includes 173 of the cinematic magician's films in pristine copies with the original hand-coloring and narration intact.