Quatro Cabeças é Melhor que Uma

This early Georges Méliès fantasy feature is outstanding for 1898, both in its convincing special visual effects and in its witty good humor, and it's still lots of fun to watch today. There are quite a few lesser-known gems among Méliès's many fantasy features, and this is one of the best ones.

The setup is simple, but Méliès uses it with great skill and imagination. Méliès himself appears on screen, and does tricks with his own head. As elementary as the camera tricks are, Méliès was already expert at using them, and as a result most of the illusions are seamless and very enjoyable. There is also a good deal of humor in the ways that Méliès interacts with all of the "Troublesome Heads".

Any film that still survives from the 1890s is usually worth seeing for its historical value, and most of them also provide some kind of interesting information on the techniques or subject matter of the earliest movies. But this is one feature whose value goes well beyond the historical. It's enjoyable in itself, and it is also one of the earliest examples of the genius of one of cinema's most extraordinary pioneers.

In December of 1895, the Lumière brothers began the first series of screenings of their "moving pictures" starting with this the history of cinema as a form of entertainment. Among those first impressed by the magic of motion pictures was a man who differed from the Lumière's idea of using cinema only for scientific purposes, the stage magician Georges Méliès. Story says that the very day he watched a movie for the first time, Méliès bought a Lumière cinematographer to do his own movies as he discovered the potential of movies as an art form. Like all the early pioneers, Méliès started with short documentaries, but quickly he put in practice his idea of using the invention to tell stories. His continuous experimentation took him in 1896 to the discovery of many special effects where he was finally able to "transform reality" in his movies. The amazing "Cinemagician" had arrived and with him, cinema as a narrative art had been born.

1898's "Un Homme De Têtes" (Literally "A man of heads", but better known as "The Four Troublesome Heads") is one of the earliest surviving films done by Méliès, and while not as well known as his posterior work, it already shows the amazing talent that the magician had as a creator of special effects. As many of his earliest movies, "Un Homme De Têtes" is basically a short movie where he shows a magical trick impossible to achieve in real life. In this case, a magician (Méliès himself) appears on stage, and removes his own head with magic, putting it in a table next to him. Suddenly, another head appears over his shoulders and the head on the table begins to sing. The magician repeats the trick until he has three heads on a table besides his own, and now he has four singing heads to perform a song.

Barely with little less of a minute of duration, "Un Homme De Têtes" is a wonderful display of Méliès' talent with special effects, as with a mixture of prosthetics, dissolves and multiple exposures he achieves a very lively representation of his magic. While for today's technologies this little trick is pretty easy to achieve, it is a remarkable achievement for early film-making, as the "gimmick" surprisingly looks very real and still is very effective despite being over 100 years old. The way Méliès conceived the trick is also worthy of praise, as the movie feels very fluid and the necessary cuts for the trick are done very smoothly. As with most "gimmick films", there is no plot other than a magician performing his act as if it was a theater presentation, however, Méliès makes a very charming performance as the magician that adds a lot to the movie's atmosphere of being in a circus.

French director Georges Méliès is definitely better remembered for his early fantasy films like his version of "Cinderella" ("Cendrillon") or his famous "A Trip to the Moon" ("Le Voyage Dans la lune"), movies where not only he showed wonderful special effects, but also a brilliant narrative skill and a vision for set designs. However, it was with films like "Un Homme De Têtes" where everything started, and when one compares Méliès' early work with the early films of other pioneers, one can see who was truly the superior filmmaker at the time. Definitely one of the early masters of cinema, Georges Méliès' work is one of clever tricks, enormous imagination and true magic, as he was probably the first person who knew that cinema was the factory of dreams. After all, he was not called the "Cinemagician" for nothing. 7/10

I saw that one teen boy gave this short (how else to call a movie lasting only 50 seconds?) a poor 2 out of 10. No sense of history there. Un Homme de Têtes may not even last a minute, but it's incredibly fast-paced and extremely well done. Hey, it even looks more convincing than most of those computer-generated special effects you see in the cinemas these days.

Méliès takes off his head a few times and sings a song with the head clones. A simple idea but brilliantly executed by the cinemagician (as the French DVD aptly describes this pioneer).

Okay, this is NOT a great film compared to later films--even the later films of this film's creator, Méliès (who created many, many magical films such as Le Voyage Dans le Lune). But, and this is the important part, for 1898, the film is without peer for its brilliant use of camera tricks. Like ALL other films of the era, this is a short film--lasting between one and two minutes (depending on the frame rate at which it is played), but in all other respects it is different. Showing his love for the absurd and fantastic, Méliès features a performer who pulls off his head and places it on a table--where it sings away. Then, a new head re-appears and he does it again until there are four heads in total!! It is amazing for its time and not to be missed by film historians.

If you want to see this film online, go to Google and type in "Méliès" and then click the video button for a long list of his films that are viewable without special software.

For 1898 totally amazing. Even when we rode around like cars on our buts in the early 70s it was amazing. He was the first and father of imagination of that sort.