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Georges Méliès (1861–1938), a French filmmaker and magician, made a variety of short actuality films between 1896 and 1900. Méliès was established as a magician with his own theater-of-illusions, the Théâtre Robert-Houdin in Paris, when he attended the celebrated first public demonstration of the Lumière Brothers' Kinetoscope in December 1895. Unable to purchase a camera from the Lumières, who insisted that the venture had no future, he bought a film projector and some films from the British film experimenter Robert W. Paul and began projecting them at the Théâtre Robert-Houdin. Meanwhile, Méliès studied the principles on which Paul's projector ran, and in 1896 was able to modify the machine so that it could be used as a makeshift camera. At first, Méliès followed the custom of the time, and the example memorably set by the pioneering Lumières, by producing actuality films—brief "slice of life" incidents made by preparing naturalistic scenes for the camera or by filming events of the day. These "cityscapes, scenic views, and domestic vignettes" closely followed the model already set by the Lumières and their salaried operators, who had already been sent to various points abroad to publicize the Lumière camera and bring home actualities filmed in foreign climes. All told, Méliès filmed 93 films, or 18% of his entire output, outdoors as actuality footage.

However, Méliès was also interested in expanding his line of films to include less common genres. His second film, Conjuring, captured a theatrical magic act on film; his sixth, Watering the Flowers, moved into comedy, remaking the Lumière's influential L'Arroseur Arrosé. Following his discovery of the substitution splice in 1896, Méliès moved further into fiction and trick films, building his own studio on his property in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis to allow for the filming of his theatrically inspired, storytelling-based scènes composées—"artificially arranged scenes." His last nonfiction work was the seventeen-part Paris Exposition, 1900 film series. Because of his move away from actualities into fiction, he is generally regarded as the first person to recognize the potential of narrative film. In an advertisement, Méliès proudly described the difference between his innovative theatrical films and the actualities still being made by his contemporaries: "these fantastic and artistic films reproduce stage scenes and create a new genre entirely different from the ordinary cinematographic views of real people and real streets."

Films

The following guide to Méliès's actuality films lists the numbers assigned in the catalogues of Méliès's studio, the Star Film Company; the original French and English titles; the presumed filming date; and whether the film survives or is presumed lost. Unless otherwise referenced, this data comes from Jacques Malthête's 2008 filmography of the films of Georges Méliès. Wherever possible, brief summaries of the films are given; unless otherwise cited, these are extrapolated from the available French and English titles.

Notes

References

1. Frazer 1979, pp. 33–35
2. Malthête & Mannoni 2008, pp. 301–302
3. ^ Ezra 2000, p. 13
4. ^ Rosen 1987, p. 749
5. Ezra 2000, p. 62
6. ^ Rosen 1987, p. 750
7. Malthête, Jacques (2002), "Les Vues spéciales de l'Exposition de 1900, tournées par Georges Méliès", 1895: Revue de l'Association française de recherche sur l'histoire du cinéma, 36, retrieved 24 January 2014
8. Cook, David A. (1981), A History of Narrative Film, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, p. 13, ISBN 0393013707
9. Kovács, Katherine Singer (Autumn 1976), "Georges Méliès and the Féerie", Cinema Journal, 16 (1): 1–13, doi:10.2307/1225446, JSTOR 1225446
10. Malthête & Mannoni 2008, pp. 334–356
11. ^ Malthête & Mannoni 2008, p. 23
12. Malcolmson, Patricia (1986). English laundresses : a social history, 1850-1930. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. p. 6. ISBN 0-252-01293-3. OCLC 12808522.
13. Malthête, Jacques (2013), Gaines, Jane; Vatsal, Radha; Dall'Asta, Monica (eds.), "Georgette Méliès", Women Film Pioneers Project, Center for Digital Research and Scholarship, Columbia University Libraries, retrieved 26 December 2016
14. Malthête & Mannoni 2008, pp. 23–24
15. ^ Malthête & Mannoni 2008, p. 24
16. ^ Essai 1981, p. 58.
17. Hutchinson, Pamela (22 October 2020), "What the flip! The chance discovery that's uncovered treasures of the very earliest cinema", The Guardian
18. Frazer 1979, p. 242
19. ^ Malthête & Mannoni 2008, p. 25
20. Frazer 1979, p. 243
21. Dewdney, Christopher (2008), Soul of the World: Unlocking the Secrets of Time, Toronto: HarperCollins, p. 70, ISBN 9781554680023, retrieved 27 March 2014
22. Méliès, Georges (2008), Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema (DVD; short film collection), Los Angeles: Flicker Alley, ISBN 978-1893967359
23. Frazer 1979, p. 245
24. ^ Malthête & Mannoni 2008, p. 26
25. Malthête & Mannoni 2008, p. 27
26. Frazer 1979, p. 81

Citations

• Ezra, Elizabeth (2000), Georges Méliès, Manchester: Manchester University Press, ISBN 0719053951
• Essai de reconstitution du catalogue français de la Star-Film; suivi d'une analyse catalographique des films de Georges Méliès recensés en France, Bois d'Arcy: Service des archives du film du Centre national de la cinématographie, 1981, ISBN 2903053073, OCLC 10506429
• Frazer, John (1979), Artificially Arranged Scenes: The Films of Georges Méliès, Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., ISBN 0816183686
• Malthête, Jacques; Mannoni, Laurent (2008), L'oeuvre de Georges Méliès, Paris: Éditions de La Martinière, ISBN 9782732437323
• Rosen, Miriam (1987), "Méliès, Georges", in Wakeman, John (ed.), World Film Directors: Volume I, 1890–1945, New York: The H. W. Wilson Company, pp. 747–765, ISBN 0824207572

External links

• Films directed by Georges Méliès
• Lists of French films
• Lists of 1890s films