Le Voyage dans la Lune

In twenty years, Georges Méliès has designed and made approximately 600 short films, before prematurely disappearing because of a precarious financial situation aggravated by a widowhood in 1913 and the First World War in 1914. His originals were mainly destroyed between 1914 and 1925, either to recover the silver in themselves or to transform them into heels of military shoes for the "poilus", i.e. French World War I infantrymen. Thus, those available today, on YouTube for instance, are mostly hand-colored copies.

A century later, Georges Méliès is unanimously considered as a prolific and awesome pioneer. In France, he built the first film studio. He dedicated his life to silent film and illusions. This film is a masterpiece of illusions and poetry, thanks to many technical innovations, well before Avengers: Endgame (Anthony and Joe Russo, 2019). It is part of the French heritage, as Scrooge, or Marley's Ghost (Walter R. Booth, 1901) in UK, or The Great Train Robbery (Edwin S. Porter, 1903) in USA.

Watching this 1902 French extravaganza for the first time is like dipping your brain into the distant past. It's almost physically painful to try to imagine a world where this delightful little theatrical romp didn't previously exist and its circulation almost certainly created the art of narrative film as we know it. The trick photography, especially with the smoky smashing of the moon creatures, is as fresh as daisy and the intricate set design is stunning. Rarely are culturally significant artefacts this fun to actually consume.

"A Trip to the Moon" is justly the most popular early film. I've seen thousands of early short movies and have commented on some of the most interesting cases, but this one is more amusing and imaginative than the rest (although a rather sinister reflection of colonialism may be read into the explorers treatment of the Moon's natives). It's better than Georges Méliès's other surviving pictures because it has a more developed story--without the tableau vivant style becoming as boring as it usually does. Wacky humor and trick shots help, but that's in the rest of his oeuvre, too. Influenced by the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, as well as Adolphe Dennery's adaptation of those pieces, the story is about a gang of astronomers, who, launched from a cannon onto the Moon, encounter explosive aliens (or "Selenites", as Méliès called them).

Méliès used the stop-motion (or substitution-splice) effect and arising smoke for explosive characters in many of his films--same with superimpositions, animated miniatures and placing a fish tank in front of the camera. Additionally, his set designs were the best of the day. I easily forget it's all done within a cramped studio. He often used moving props, too, but this is one of the few that I've seen where the prop is pulled towards the camera--creating the famous rocket kissing the moon's eye gag. The following shot is a temporal replay of that action from a different perspective. It works here, but Edwin S. Porter would make the mistake of adopting the technique for "Life of an American Fireman", which was reedited later, leading many to believe it was a landmark in narrative editing. The "30 tableaux", as Méliès called it, is linked by dissolves--a common transition at the time, which he introduced.

Méliès made it known that his goal was to push cinema towards resembling theatre. The benefit was longer films with more developed stories. Given this, it's ironic that he was one of the first filmmakers to achieve effects specific to motion pictures (i.e. incapable of being produced in theatre or other art forms)... i.e. the trick shots.

Numerous early shorts are blatant imitations of Méliès's work, but they usually weren't as funny or creative. Many studios even duped his films and sold them as their own, which led to Méliès patenting his work in the U.S. and joining the Motion Pictures Patents Company (MPPC). "A Trip to the Moon" represents the height of his career. His work would soon diminish under the hectic schedule of the Nickelodeon age and the monopolization by the MPPC and Pathé, and he would end up burning his own negatives. Watch Jacques Meny's documentary "La Magie Méliès" (1997) for a good telling of his life and films.

(Note: This is one of four films that I've commented on because they're landmarks of early narrative development in film history. The others are "As Seen Through a Telescope", "The Great Train Robbery" and "Rescued by Rover".)

A Trip to the Moon is barely a film as a modern audience would understand it, but the short's intriguing visuals make it an entertaining and interesting watch. Effectively a reinterpretation of the classic nineteenth century colonial adventure story (oh no - savages!) in an outer space context.

B

"Le voyage dans la lune" (1902, Georges Méliès) is loosely based on a story by Jules Verne. It also contains a little Greek mythology in that the inhabitants of the moon (Selenieten) are named after Selene, the Goddess of the moon.

The poster with the moon having a rocket ship in his eye is iconographic. The film itself is mainly of historical importance, but this historical importance is big.

Georges Méliès was one of the founding fathers of early cinema. He pioneered in special effects and made a start with film editing. His roots were in vaudeville theater. This can be seen in "Le voyage dans la lune" when the launching of the rocket ship is festively accompanied by a couple of cheerleader like girls.

Thanks to the initiatives of his countrymen the Pathé brothers film did outgrow the vaudeville format and got a theater of his own, called a cinema. Méliès fell into oblivion and got financial problems. Only due to a rediscovery in 1929 he could spend his last years carefree.