La Danse du feu

By 1899, the Serpentine Dance had established itself as a staple of the cinematic arts, and one might assume there was little more one could do with the concept. Georges Melies, on the other hand, was all about creativity, and he contributed to the improvement of the base concept by turning it into a narrative. Melies transforms the flowing movements of the Serpentine gown into flickering tongues of flame, alluding to a scene from H. Rider Haggard's 1887 novel, She: A History of Adventure. The demonic production design and the opening devil contribute to the proceedings' mysticism and exoticism, as the whole thing transforms into an enchanting visage. Despite this, the film as a whole is rather lacking. A fanciful display of a tired conceit is still a tired conceit, and the film's various filigree does little to save it from being an intriguing visual experience with little substance.

This brief shot-scene film by early cinema pioneer Georges Méliès doesn't really have anything to do with Haggard's "She", an association made probably just because they both feature the pillar of fire. To me, however, it does build upon a cinematic tradition, taken from the stage, of serpentine dances and the early film genre of dance films in general. Löie Fuller invented the Serpentine Dance on stage. Her skirt waving was accompanied by color transformations created by the lighting effects reflecting upon the fabric. For film, beginning at the Edison Company, hand-coloring the negatives became the substitute for this lighting effect, as seen in the Annabelle dance films. Thereafter, nearly every studio and filmmaker in the early days had made a serpentine dance, probably including a straightforward one or more by Méliès.

Méliès adds to this staple of early cinema his common device of a devil to be the director's surrogate as on-screen magician. Out of a cauldron, he conjures a woman who begins performing the serpentine dance. Her dance then becomes the fluttering and flaming of the pillar of fire. Fortunately, the print available today is wonderfully hand-colored, adding to the comparably beautiful colored serpentine dances made by the Edison and Lumiére companies, as well as some others. What this one also has is quite a bit of leg shown by the dancer for early cinema standards, as she lifts her dress up. It also has the typical magic effects of Méliès, and he thankfully doesn't overdo it with too many trick effects. This is how you would hope Méliès would've approached the dance, and he did—a sublime synthesis of two early cinematic directions.

(See "Annabelle Serpentine Dance" (1895) and "Danse serpentine" (1897/II) for comparison.)

There is no real idea here. A woman is conjured and flails around. It feels five minutes long even though it's so short. Skippable!

Pillar of Fire, The (1899)

*** (out of 4)

aka La Danse du feu

Neat fantasy film from Melies has the devil building a fire, which springs forward a woman who does a strange dance. There are a few special effects here, which are quite nice but the big bonus of this film is that it is hand colored and looks pretty good at that. The devil is painted green and the woman in a mixture of orange and white but the film is a beauty to look at as an early example of color. As for the story, it's really nothing overly special but the film remains worth viewing for fans of the director or anyone interested in the early color films.

The film is obviously painted. With no color film, each frame had to be colored. The beginning moment is quite striking. A devilish figure appears and creates an angelic female who begins to dance. She swirls her wispy clothing and actually makes the aforementioned pillar of fire. It is quite striking to watch. Another thoughtful venture.