Barbe-bleue

Georges Méliès Bluebeard is one of the earliest examples of narrative film-making. It is a dry run for Méliès later hugely influential A Trip to the Moon. Up until this point in time cinema was the preserve of visual trickery and pure realist reproduction. No one had really worked out how to tell stories via this new medium. It was left to the ultimate cinematic innovator Méliès to start thinking of film as a narrative form. And with this little movie we have a definite story; one which is also replete with the director's famed visual invention. It's one of the first times that he utilised his special effects into an actual story. There are several different sets, all of which have detailed design. The story itself is about the evil character Bluebeard. It's a much more macabre subject than Méliès more common fantasy based tales. This one still has those elements too but also has darker, more nightmarish content. In its most memorable moment, for instance, the heroine enters a secret room where the dead bodies of Bluebeard's seven previous wives hang. It's quite striking and one of the earliest examples of horror cinema. The whole fantasy dream sequence is overall very effective with a sprite that leaps out of a book, ghostly apparitions and giant dancing keys. It's an entertaining film whose main historical importance is that it is one of the very first twitches of narrative cinema.

I don't know the story of Bluebeard, so this ten minute motion picture is my first introduction. I could gather that he was wealthy and wanted to marry a recalcitrant woman. She reluctantly agreed and was given a huge wedding feast. After the wedding Bluebeard bestowed upon her the keys to his castle--and they were many--essentially telling her that the entire estate was at her disposal, except for one room. One room he made a big show about being off limits, then, laughably, he gave her the key to that room. So what do you think she did?

Of course, she entered the room where she saw the corpses (I'm assuming) of former wives.

I'm intrigued. I now must read the story of Bluebeard.

Free on YouTube.

this movie has great backgrounds from the castle,the greatest moment is a real horror moment when the woman goes into the forbidden room and finds the hanged 7 ladies all former wives of bluebeard,another great moment is when the woman sleeps and dreams when the ghosts of the 7 dead wives and the dancing keys appears.

This lavish, well-crafted version of the legend of "Bluebeard" also contains plenty of distinctive touches from the great cinema pioneer Georges Méliès. He must have enjoyed making this story, which offers a good variety of material, and to which he added his own richly detailed background sets and special camera effects.

The first half of the story begins with Bluebeard about to be married for the eighth time, and while this part has none of the special effects for which Méliès is usually remembered, it's pretty good without them. The backgrounds are quite interesting, and there is a funny banquet preparation scene that combines wit and slapstick. The second half focuses on the grimmer part of the well-known legend, and in this part there are plenty of good visual effects to go with the story itself.

As was often the case with his movies, especially in his earlier years, Méliès planned for a spoken narration to accompany this when it was shown. Actually, the movie is probably good enough that most of it could probably stand on its own, with the possible exception of portions of the earlier scenes. The DVD release does have the narration, which makes sure that you don't miss any of the detail in this imaginative version of the story.

Like many of the classic films of Georges Méliès, 'Bluebeard' is groundbreaking, surprising, and filled with fun camera tricks and special effects magic, and it is also, no doubt, one of his darkest films. It's one of the earliest horror films ever made, and it gets pretty wild, particularly towards the end in which Méliès just fills the screen with action and suspense and special effects and death and ghosts and so on and so on.

The first portion of the film is actually fairly comedic, which makes how bizarre and tense it gets later on all the more surprising, shocking, and uniquely amusing/entertaining. Much of the comedy is in the common vaudevillian and slapstick vein Méliès's films, whether they be science fiction, romance, fantasy, etc., often indulge in. It helps set a tone that is harshly shifted by the end in a very enjoyable and fun way.

Of course, it gets better once it becomes a full blown horror film. Images of hanging women and keys that grow and shrink and spirits and an extremely energetic devil come and go and it's surreal and extremely impressive for the time. Méliès experiments with the overlaying of images atop other images, an effect we now take very much for granted, in a very thrilling nightmare sequence, and the jump cut tricks and theatrical bursts of smoke are very much in the vein of many of Méliès's other fantastical shorts.