Melies The Cinemagician

Danny · Post by **Danny** » Thu Sep 16, 2010 8:58 am

Every time I watch the Melies collection, I become more and more of an admire of his work. He was truly the first "Cinemagician".

His concept of using cinema for his magic showed what film had the potential to do. Is there a good biography about his life and career? What was his relationship to Segundo de Chomon? Were they competitive, or on friendly terms? Their work was so similar.

Danny

Micromegas · Post by **Micromegas** » Thu Sep 16, 2010 11:36 am

The absolute best book (in English, at least) on the man is Artificially Arranged Scenes: The Films of Georges Melies by John Frazer. In spite of the title, there is quite a bit of bio. It's hard to track down a used copy tho' and you may have to try the library.

Others listed in rough order of depth on the subject are:

Marvelous Melies by Paul Hammond
George Melies by Elizabeth Ezra
George Melies: Father of Film Fantasy by David Robinson

The Hammond book is also somewhat tough to buy used. Don't know about the last two.

Steve

rollot24 · Post by **rollot24** » Thu Sep 16, 2010 12:16 pm

There is a coffee table book to accompany a museum show called Melies: Magie et Cinema. It is in French but the pictures are wonderful, lots of his production designs.

The (so far) one and only time I was in Paris I stumbled onto the museum show on its very last day. What a treat. Models, automatons, costumes, sketches, the works. It was for the 100th anniversary of "Trip to the Moon."

Micromegas · Post by **Micromegas** » Thu Sep 16, 2010 12:23 pm

Another recent book that's really great for the illustrations is L'oeuvre de Georges Melies (2008)...again it's in French, obviously.

Steve

spadeneal · Post by **spadeneal** » Fri Dec 31, 2010 1:09 am

Just saw the Méliès presentation made by TCM, drawn from the Flicker Alley set which I have not seen. When it comes to techniques, different things may be attributed to different people. But I don't think there were many things that Méliès didn't try; among the several films shown I noticed at least one close shot (from a 1902 title), numerous uses of traveling mattes, optical printing techniques and the monster in The Conquest of the Pole is obviously an ancestor to King Kong. Méliès used stage resources far more effectively than other proscenium arch film makers; elevators, trap doors, multi-layers of transparent curtain, transporters etc. Most stagebound film makers in the US didn't even bother with such equipment, relying on actors and static sets to convey the scene as is.

I think we owe Méliès a lot more credit for developing the visual language of film, and defining certain technical resources, than is currently afforded him.

spadeneal

spadeneal

WaverBoy · Post by **WaverBoy** » Fri Dec 31, 2010 8:44 pm

Méliès:

Miller:

Uncanny, no?