Perhaps the first great achievement in the history of motion pictures is simply length. The Lumiere brothers, the well-known pioneers of cinema, made a few movies in the late 19th century revolving around everyday life events, the most famous of which you've probably seen. As simple as we may look at it today, the arrival of a train into a station by placing the camera near the train at an angle to make the train seem larger than life is said to have caused an uproar in viewers of the time.
By any standards, the films of the Lumiere brothers were short films, lasting anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes depending on the frame rate at which the film was presented. These first few early examples of the capabilities of film were devoted exclusively to documenting everyday life. It wasn't until a magician, a stage performer by the name of George Méliès, caught his eye on one of these devices the Lumiere brothers called the cinematograph, or as we call them today, film cameras.
Méliès understood that this medium could be the gateway to perform tricks he could have never dreamed of performing in front of a live audience. It would be a way to explore the endless possibilities of magic through another medium. He created many films where he pushed the envelope of what was thought possible at the time.
His most famous film, A Trip to the Moon, is still remembered today as the first great achievement in the history of cinema. A Trip to the Moon wasn't the first motion picture of all time. But it was in many ways the first successful fictional film. Considered by many film scholars to be the first science fiction film of all time, it was also the first motion picture to challenge the established ideas of how long a movie could be, how much it could cost, and what the art form was capable of showing.
In his heart, Méliès was a magician, and he found film to be an incredibly useful way to explore worlds unknown. and dazzle his viewers with tricks and effects no one had conceived until then. If you watch A Trip to the Moon at 24 frames per second, today's industry standard, then it lasts roughly 9 minutes.
This is the equivalent of 260 meters of film stock. While 9 minutes is nothing to us, being not only a short film, but a short, short film, this was a staggering amount of time for audiences in 1902. So in that way, A Trip to the Moon can be considered the first feature-length film in the first epic. The film is about a council of scientists that decide to embark on an expedition to the moon.
They build a space capsule and are then launched into space in a cannon. The most famous shot of the film and one of the most famous shots in film history, the man in the moon hit in the eye by the space capsule. The crew explores unknown worlds with beautiful landscapes and giant mushrooms, to even encountering the Selenites, the moon's indigenous people.
The explorers kill a few of the natives and are chased, but they manage to escape in the capsule, landing safely back on Earth with one of the natives and are celebrated as heroes in France. Melies wrote, produced, directed, and even starred in the film. He was also involved in creating the scenography, wardrobe design, and cinematography. The genius of Méliès was in almost single-handedly creating standards that future filmmakers would follow.
There weren't any general structures, characters, or special techniques for filmmakers to follow during the turn of the century, making Méliès'work a truly creative endeavor. The films of the Lumiere brothers that documented the events of everyday life presented a way to place the camera in a certain position to evoke a certain emotion, like awe in the face of an oncoming train. But it wasn't until Méliès came around that his style would break boundaries. He always placed the camera as if it were a viewer in a theater, his films certainly having a theater-like quality to them.
From the elaborate costumes and set to the seemingly magical special effects that were unknown at the time. He would also only cut after a scene was over, instead of cutting in the middle of one. This would give you the illusion of watching a theater play instead of a film.
In the short films that preceded In a trip to the moon, the editing usually consisted of very simple cuts. One shot would simply take you into the next, and one scene would just move on to the next as well. There wasn't any smoothness to the editing process.
Techniques like superimposition, the placement of an image on top of an already existing image, to add overall effect to transitions, were first developed by Méliès. His creative genius introduced the world to the subtlety of transitioning dissolves, allowing the viewer to move smoothly from one scene into the next. It's important to mention as well, as far as the scope of the film goes, that it took Méliès three months to make.
For that time's standards, this meant ages. The same goes for the cost of the film, which was only natural considering the amount of film stock they had to use. and Melies'elaborate set, costume designs, and pyrotechnics, among other special effects. Very few copies of the film were hand-colored, and it's amazing what that entailed.
They had someone painting with a brush over the film stock, over every single frame. It's also very impressive that the movie was shot almost entirely in Melies'studio. Except for the shot where the capsule plunges into real ocean waves, which was filmed on location.
The set designs are truly wonderful, expertly crafted, and the same goes for the costume design. They speak to the satirical tone of the film. The scientists in the meeting look more like magicians than scientists. The professor, played by Melies himself, simply draws a picture of the Earth and Moon, a capsule in its trajectory.
There's not even a single equation. However, the scientists burst in outrage and then a few accept with minimum details. The themes in the film range from the exploration of space, worlds unknown, to even social commentary on colonization. The explorers arrive at this new world, where they kill some of the natives, and then they take one back as a slave and are treated as heroes in doing so.
A Trip to the Moon is undoubtedly a surrealist film, creating entities from inanimate objects, blending dreams with reality, and theater with the endless creative potential of film. Inspirations for the movie include Jules Verne's novels From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon, among other works. George Méliès'background as a magician and in theater helped him create the effects for the movie. For the special effects, the substitution splice technique, which was also developed by Melies, was extensively used, where the camera operator would stop for long enough so that something could be removed, added in, or moved in the frame. This effect was also used for the famous man in the moon shot, allowing the capsule to suddenly appear in the eye of the actor.
According to Melies'memoirs, He had a hard time selling the film to exhibitors because of its unusually elevated price. Knowing that he wouldn't be able to sell it before word of mouth would spread, he allowed one exhibitor to borrow the film for free so he could show it to an audience to see how the film would be received. Needless to say, the film was a spectacular success. Afterwards, the film was shown uninterrupted at the Olympia Music Hall in Paris for several months.
Although the film was a success in the United States as well, this wasn't exactly great for Méliès since the film suffered from a piracy crisis. Thomas Edison, among others, created copies of the film and gave it a widespread distribution without Méliès'consent. Eventually, Méliès failed to continue to make films because of financial difficulties and ended up selling toys and candy in Paris.
Most of the prints for A Trip to the Moon were lost, even though the film was a large success and was forgotten for quite a few years. It wasn't until 1997 that the full movie, including the lost final celebration sequence, was recreated. The impact of A Trip to the Moon in the history of cinema is inescapable. Its creative power in creating a fantasy world in a time where short documentary filmmaking was the norm makes the film one of the great creative quests of the 20th century.
Filmmakers that came after Melies have expressed their love for his work, being featured in the Scorsese film Hugo that clearly shows the affection Scorsese had for Melies'influence in the evolution of motion pictures. Filmmaker D.W. Griffith also expressed his gratefulness for Melies'contribution Stating, I owe him everything. It's a motion picture that cannot be missed by anyone, whether lover of film or casual viewer. This is where it all begins.
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