Le Magicien

This early Georges Méliès feature is excellent, and even remarkable, for a movie made in 1898. Its level of creativity and technical skill are rarely found even in movies made several years later. The story itself is short and not very elaborate, but for a minute or so it keeps you enthralled by the interesting visual effects and illusions, and by how well they work for something made so early in the history of the movies.

Méliès likely modeled this feature after portions of his earlier stage routines, but it's clear that he quickly realized the added potential of film in creating illusions that would impress the viewer. Méliès and a female assistant perform a series of tricks that are similar in style to those familiar from stage magicians of all eras, but some of these could not have been done without the use of film. Disappearances and transformations form most of the illusions, and they are both fun to watch and impressive to see.

What's even more impressive is that this is not the only early Méliès feature to show such skill. Like a number of his other movies, this is worth seeing in itself and as a sign of things to come.

Melies introduces us to a magician who performs various tricks where things appear and reappear. He stands before a table which at times acts like a chest, allowing him to leap into it and turn into a clown. There is little new here because Melies has done this kind of thing several times in other short films. Still, the creativity is there and he makes us pay attention.

A very cute and funny film short from George Melies. Worth watching if you want like magic and comedy. It's less than 2 minutes long and worth the time to watch it if you enjoy film shorts.

10/10

Magician, The (1898)

*** (out of 4)

aka Le Magicien

The magic of Melies is on full display here as he plays the title character and we see various magic tricks including a great one of a man jumping into a closed box and then someone else reappearing. If you like your Melies films with magic then this is just the one for you as we get non-stop magic tricks throughout the short running time. There are various sequences with Melies trying to grab for a woman only to have her disappear and then reappear in a different area. There's also a clown on hand who has several tricks pulled on him including some disappearing food. The special effects are very good throughout making this one of the director's better films.

There are a couple novel tricks in this one-minute, one-scene attraction from early cinema pioneer Georges Méliès. "The Magician" is one of the filmmaker's earliest surviving trick films, and it displays many features common throughout his oeuvre. There are appearances, disappearances and transformations of characters and objects, accomplished via editing, which Méliès had been doing in his films since at least "The Vanishing Lady" (Escamotage d'une dame au théâtre Robert Houdin)(1896) (his earliest available trick film). Once again, Méliès also plays the magician in front of the camera, as well as behind it. One of the seeming novelties of "The Magician" is that some of the tricks, or cuts, occur during action—when the characters are moving about or are in a mid-air leap. The magic is created from almost truly invisible editing—cutting on action without any change in camera setup or angle.

The second novelty here is a double exposure. According to historians, Méliès had previously used this technique in "Le cabinet de Méphistophélès" (1897), which is now a lost film. Currently, "The Magician" appears to be the earliest surviving instance of his use of the attraction. In this film, he uses it to show a woman's dismembered head atop a statue stand. The black background gives the trick away and can be seen in many other films where the director employs multiple-exposure photography. The actress would also have been covered in black below her head, so that her body wouldn't register on film. His "The Four Troublesome Heads" (Un home de tête)(1898) took multiple-exposures and disembodied heads further—fivefold, to be precise. Additionally, it seems the most exposures Méliès achieved were seven, such as in "The One-Man Band" (L'homme orchestre)(1900).