Cendrillon

My score of 10 is relative to other productions during this very early era in film as well as director Georges Méliès' other films. If you were to compare it to later silent films, then CENDRILLON will come up very, very short due to its very archaic style. And this type of comparison just wouldn't be fair, as non-stationary cameras, composition and detailed scripts were well in the future. But, for 1899, this is amazing because it introduces dissolves to go from one scene to another, a plot telling an actual story, as well as actual sets--things not used much around 1900. Most of the films circa 1900 were dull and short--only a minute or two long and featured people doing horribly mundane things--like feeding a baby or watering the lawn (seriously).

Now this story, while amazing for 1899, is not without many problems. The first portion that set the context for the story seems to either be missing or Méliès just assumed the audience understood it and skipped it. Also, while the first moments of the film are hand-colored, this disappears very quickly--perhaps it comes from piecing two or more copies together to make this film. And additionally, at times the people had no idea what to do, so they did some weird things--like have lots and lots of clocks and elves (why?!?!) as well as a somewhat impromptu dance number at the end. Rough? Yes, but still compared to what else was out there, this was the best sort of film available...period. For film historians, this and the rest of Méliès' films are a must.

By the way, to see just how far films had progressed, try also watching the 1914 version starring Mary Pickford. It stands up much better today and is a truly magnificent film even almost a hundred years later.

I didn't say "the first multi-scene production ever made", and for a very simple reason: the earliest multi-scene short was actually made a year prior to this one in the form of Robert Paul's "Come Along Do!" from 1898. Unfortunately, as that short only partially survives as a thirty-second fragment, it is frequently forgotten as such with more recognition given to this Cinderella adaptation. Early filmmakers had long been contemplating how to accomplish multi-scene story structures, with such shorts as W. K. L. Dickson's "Rip van Winkle" of 1896, but because they hadn't fully discovered the way of going about such filmmaking yet, they'd often just shoot each scene separately as its own film. In doing so, this would make these multi-scene films into serials (the first ones ever, actually) which really don't qualify as an entire movie. Attempted story films such as the aforementioned "Rip van Winkle" by Dickson, Georges Hatot's "La Vie et la Passion de Jésus-Christ" of 1898 and even Méliès's "The Dreyfus Affair" (1899, amusingly enough almost right before this movie) all use this technique without creating an actual short. In fact, because the Méliès serial was made almost right before this, (with his lost film "The Snow Man" separating the two) one has to wonder if Méliès was trying to change the serial way of filming multi-scene stories when he made "Cinderella".

The four (or is it five?) scene movie is, of course, still quite short when looking at it today, but at the time six minutes was just about full-length. It really doesn't seem to cover the entire story, such as the cruelty of the stepsisters (I've looked at the original Star Film Catalogue, and it doesn't indicate that anything at the beginning is missing), so I suppose Méliès felt he had the right to skip a few minor parts. For what it is, though, it is good, including even a few small touches, such as the appearance of Father Time (played by the director himself) the dancing clocks, and the dance scene at the end. As Frazer points out in "Artificially Arranged Scenes", many of Méliès's multi-scene narratives, such as the apotheosis and said ending dance in here, all reflect the stage productions from that time. No doubt he felt a theatrical grande finale was in order and that the movie shouldn't just 'end'. Thus, he was no doubt appealing to audiences tastes in that bygone era.

In addition, a small fraction of film (part of the opening sequence) appears to have been hand-colored. While almost all of Méliès's work in his entire career was colored by Mme. Elisabeth Thuillier, a french colorist who hired about two hundred female workers to paint in each frame on a filmstrip, I have read nothing at all about her having worked on this particular short. Because of this, I presume the colorized fraction available today is probably the work of Albert E. Smith's team of workers at Vitagraph, who apparently bought the short to release in America and create colored prints. I am not sure if the surviving print uses a hand-colored fragment and some black-and-white copies to create a complete short, or if this is one print which was only started and given up on. If the latter is correct (it may not be since a few seconds of the beginning are black-and-white before the color kicks in) I could see why they gave up so quickly. Hand-painting was a very tedious process, since a minute of film for Méliès was about twenty meters, and each frame of it had to be colored in. It's a process even I myself have tried, so far producing poor results, and compared to what I've done the coloring in here is incredibly well-done and manages to stay within the lines. How do they do it? It's too bad they didn't persist in finishing it off.

Also, while I mentioned before that nothing at the beginning appears to be missing, I think there could be a bit at the end that doesn't survive. Méliès's Star Film Catalogue lists the various tableaus, and I perceive that a few are not in the available print. A tableau listed as "The Wedding" is not apparent, as neither is "Cinderella's Sisters" (which might have featured them pleading for forgiveness as in Méliès's later 1912 version), "The King, Queen, and Lords", "The Nuptial Cortege", "The Celestial Spheres" or "The Transformation". As Mr. Frazer has pointed out in "Artificially Arranged Scenes", a tabeau meant either a entire scene or an event occurring within a scene. With "Cinderella", the latter appears to be the case, so there might be only one scene missing that record all these events. As it is, I have not found any indication between the surviving sections that anything's missing. Does the procession at the church feature all the ending tableaus that appear not to be there, and each ending tableau is merely a description of the various members in the procession? If so, where's the said celestial spheres in the procession? What's the transformation of the second-to-last tableau? I have no clue, so the absence of these missing tableaus will have to remain a mystery until further evidence is uncovered.

A later version of this movie from 1912, mentioned previously and also made by Méliès, also attempts to capture Perrault's story in a much more detailed way without rushing the events, yet it remains even less known because of being too stagy by the standards of 1912. I have yet to make a comparison between the shorts, but this will no doubt occur when I get around to writing a review on that version. As for this one, it's literally the most sophisticated film of the 19th century when it comes to visuals, story, and structure. This not a serial...it's a full movie, and even proves it when you notice how each scene is connected by a dissolve instead of a cut.

There was an adaptation of Cinderella all the way back in 1899. Who knew? It's pretty good. So good in fact that I'm going to go ahead and predict that this is going to be a 100x better than the live action version Disney's releasing. Anyway, George Méliès manages to tell the story without cutting anything major out. It has the fairy godmother transforming the mice into knights (I think they were knights) and the pumpkin into a carriage, it has the ball, it has the clock striking midnight, it as the Prince looking for Cinderella, and it has the happy ending we've come to expect from fairy tale adaptations. All that was accomplished way back in 1899. If that isn't amazing, then I don't know what is. The only part I didn't like was the part I didn't understand. It was the part directly after the clock strikes midnight. It had Cinderella in her house with all these old guys dancing around with clocks. I don't know what that was all about, but it doesn't really affect my overall opinion of this short.

Cinderella (1899)

*** (out of 4)

aka Cendrillon

The poor Cinderella gets a visit from her fairy godmother but the fun ends at midnight. There were earlier versions of this classic story but who better to bring it to life than George Melies? Melies brings his normal magic to the film and the special effects are pretty good. The highlight of the film is during the beginning when the godmother shows up and for a brief second we get some hand colored sequences. The coloring here is a lot better than what we've seen from this period. Since the film only runs five minutes not all of the story gets shown but the director does a good job at filling the screen with all the high points of the story. This certainly isn't as good as the 1914 version with Mary Pickford but it's still a winner.

This is a nice and quick version of the Cinderella story... it's worth watching if you have 6 minutes to spare for it. Not all the story is shown but it get to the point of the story fast - too bad this one wasn't a bit longer.

8/10