Méliès, Georges

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Méliès (credit: Rene Dazy — J.P. Ziolo)

(born Dec. 8, 1861, Paris, France — died Jan. 21, 1938, Paris) French filmmaker. He was a professional magician and manager-director of the Théâtre Robert-Houdin in Paris when he saw the first movies made by Auguste and Louis Lumière in 1895. In his film experiments he exploited the basic camera tricks of slow motion, dissolve, and fade-out. The first to film fiction narratives, from 1899 to 1912 he made more than 400 films, which combined illusion, comic burlesque, and pantomime in fantasy productions, including A Trip to the Moon (1902). He also filmed reconstructed news events as an early form of newsreel. Overtaken by the commercial growth of the film industry, he was forced to sell his studio in 1913.

For more information on Georges Méliès, visit Britannica.com.

Méliès, Georges (1861–1938), influential French film producer and director of numerous films, many of which were adaptations of classical fairy tales. He was the accidental inventor of trick photography and thus what we today call special effects. Méliès' most famous fantasy film—or féerie—is undoubtedly the 30‐scene science‐fiction adventure Le Voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon, 1902) in which a rocket launched from earth lands in the moon's eye. However, Méliès, a stage magician and illusionist by training who became one of the first directors to use film techniques such as dissolve, time‐lapse photography, and artificial lighting, also adapted The Grasshopper and the Ant (from Aesop's Fables) in 1897, made a 20‐scene version of Cendrillon (Cinderella) in 1899, and completed versions of Barbe‐Bleue (Bluebeard) and Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (Little Red Riding Hood) in 1901. In 1903, Méliès made Kingdom of the Fairies, 15 minutes long and 1, 080 feet in length. He remade Cinderella in 1912.

Owner of the appropriately named Star Film company, Méliès, at his zenith between 1896 and 1902, influenced European and American directors. Edwin Porter, popularly known for his Life of a Fireman (1902) also made Jack and the Beanstalk in 1902. Porter's version of Jack is modelled on Méliès's version of Bluebeard. Ferdinand Zecca further developed the trick photography techniques ‘invented’ by Méliès in the fairy‐tale adaptations Ali Baba et les 40 Voleurs (1902) and Aladin (1906). Charlie Chaplin and D. W. Griffith (‘I owe him everything’) also testified to the influence of Méliès. The French film director René Clair's 1947 tribute to Méliès was called Le Silence est d'or (Silence is Golden). Initially, Méliès's films were so successful that they were pirated, until his brother, Gaston Méliès, began registering them with the Library of Congress.

Film historians argue that whilst the Lumières invented realist narratives, or actualities, in films like Sortie des ouvriers de l'usine Lumière (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory) and L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de la Ciotat (Train Arriving at the Station), Méliès invented fantasy narratives. David Shipman writes: ‘The Lumières photographed nature; Méliès photographed a reconstructed life.’ Méliès was declared bankrupt in 1923—a fallen star. In true fairy‐tale style, though, he later married Jeanne d'Alcy, a former actress and protégée. For his considerable contributions to film, including the fairy‐tale film, Méliès was awarded a Legion of Honour medal in 1931.

Bibliography

• Bendazzi, Giannalberto, Le Film d'animation (1985).
• Parkinson, David, History of Film (1995).
• Shipman, David, The Story of Cinema: A Complete Narrative History from the Beginnings to the Present (1982).
• Mast, Gerald, A Short History of the Movies (4th edn., 1986).

— Ian Wojcik‐Andrews

French film director who was the first to film fictional narratives and created the earliest special effects. His works include A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Conquest of the Pole (1912).