Boing Boing has a link to a reworked version of Georges Méliès “Voyage Dans la Lune” (dating from 1902), widely held by most to be the first SF film (although one commentator on BB believes the Lumieres very short clip “Charcuterie Mecanique” about a machine which takes pigs in one end and produces perfect sausages from the other is the first SF film; personally I see that as a clever experiment of a few seconds and the Méliès as the first ‘proper’ SF film). Méliès is one of the great heroes of the very earliest days of the moving image, improvising many camera tricks which would later become a part of the standard ‘grammar’ of both live action and animated cinema, and ranks up there with early innovators in film imagery like Winsor McCay in my book.
He had been a Victorian stage magician at the Theatre Robert-Houdin (the magician from whence the great Houdini got his stage name), which had also incorporated various astonishing mechanical simulacra as well as stage acts; Méliès brought this technical ability, innovation, imagination and showmanship to the film medium, then only a few years old and created images which are still widely referenced over a century later in all sorts of media from adverts to animations to music videos. Given how wonderful the imagery is it isn’t hard to see why; there are two parts to the film with a new soundtrack added to this silent gem by an artist called Threetails.
Tue, Feb 27, 2007
Art and animation, Film, TV and radio