At the dawn of an art, even the smallest achievements
represent the greatest leap forward. And if these achievements can survive the
test of time, they certainly can be seen as magical. If this is the case, then Georges
Méliès (1861-1938) deserves to be one of the most wonderful filmmakers of all time. A
magician and illusionist by trade, he had such an insightful imagination that
modern artists could in no way get close. His story has inspired the novel ‘The
Invention of Hugo Cabret’ and also Hugo by Scorsese. After watching some of the
pioneering motion picture work by the Lumiere brothers, Georges decided to take
a shot at filmmaking himself, and started making hundreds of short films, many
of them survived and was still accessible on the internet. One of them proudly
stands out, and that iconic film is the subject of this article – ‘A Trip To
The Moon’ (1902)!
Though the length of ‘A Trip To The Moon’ was no longer than
13 minutes, Méliès’ wisdom was evident
in every single frame of this masterpiece. With an unlimited imagination and
deep understanding of the burgeoning film art, Méliès’ masterpiece served as a
model for many future films, and one of the most wonderful pioneering film.
The story started in an astronomy club in France , when
the members discussed about the possibility of interstellar travel. The
professor, who was the chairman of the club, proposed a daring, yet deceptively
simple approach – by shooting a capsule, which was their ‘spaceship’, through
cannon onto space. After lots of quarrels and paper-throwing, they decided to
give this a try.
A capsule, which resembled the shape of a giant bullet, was
built. Then the Frenchmen sat inside the capsule, and the capsule was fired
into the space. There seemed to have a luna-god on the moon, as he was smiling
and lazing around. Unfortunately, he got a ‘shot-in-the-eye’ when the capsule
hit on the moon’s ground. This is the one of the most iconic images in the
history of cinema, and I suppose many have seen this before even if they are
not aware of this film!
The Frenchmen arrived safely on the moon. They explored
around and saw their beloved Earth at a distance. The goddess and spirits of
the stars shone in the beautiful star. After a brief rest, they started to
investigate the peculiar plants and organisms around, when they encountered
some moon aliens. Panicked, they fought the moon aliens and killed them by
making them ‘explode’! The men were soon subdued and were brought to the king
of the moon aliens. It was there the Frenchmen suddenly revolted and killed the
king (and he exploded of course), and they ran away, with the aliens in hot
pursuit. They got into the capsule and it set off back to Earth. Arriving back
to Earth safely, the civilians celebrated such an impressive and imaginative
(though non-scientific) feat.
Méliès, who was a magician, understood how to stage a
performance and captivate the audience’s attention. His imagination was so
profound that it could only do justice by instilling his style into his many
short films. A 113-year-old film, ‘A Trip To The Moon’ was likely the very
first science fiction film (though the ‘fiction’ factor certainly
predominated). Though the idea behind the story sounds silly by today’s
standard, this film has far more substance and imagination than many of the
CGI-riddled, so-called entertaining films nowadays. If the images in Méliès’
film are not iconic, why can it still inspire so many after all these time?
‘A Trip To The Moon’ is important in the history of cinema
for 2 key reasons. First, it was likely the first narrative film. A narrative
film is a fictionalized film, that tells a story. At the start of cinema, most
of the short films were instrumental in showcasing the technology of film
projection. Thus, those short films only showed short clips of moving images,
without an intention to show a plot and tell a story. For ‘A Trip To The Moon’,
it had a clear and simple plot. The story was played out simply by action,
without the needs of any dialogue. This served as a testament to Méliès’
story-telling power, and his meticulous use of filmic images to impact and
influence audience.
Second, ‘A Trip To The Moon’ showed Méliès’ mastery of the
application of mise-en-scene. The word ‘mise-en-scene’ is French for ‘putting
into the scene’, and it has a theatrical origin. Mise-en-scene signifies the
film director's control over what will appear in the film frame. By staging the
event in the frame, the director passes on a feeling, and a meaning, to his
audience. Through an artistic application of mise-en-scene, Melies constructed
an imaginary and creative world in his masterpiece.
In an era without CGI and special effects, Méliès had to rely on rather primitive
techniques to stage the wonderful effects in the film, and these techniques
originated from his magic and theatre experiences. A couple of these were worth
mentioning, and they indeed inspired later filmmaking techniques. For example, Méliès
often employed superimposition techniques to stage depth in his short films,
and it could be seen as a sort of early composition in depth. When motion
picture cameras became more sophisticated, these techniques became easier to
operate and avoided laborious hardships.
The capsule projection scene is one I am particularly
impressed. The staging of this scene foreshadows the future anamorphic-style
composition, with the extensive use of widescreen camera lens. This represents
an aesthetic that are evident in so many of the widescreen films. That is when
a figure, in close view, is situated on one side of the horizontal plane; with
the other figure, in far view, is situated on the other side, as if a
projection action is taking place. Méliès’ foresight and wisdom pass through
generations of artists and filmmakers, and the trail is evident on the numbers
of films that are influenced by ‘A Trip To The Moon’.
Filmmakers have to stand on the shoulder of a
giant to look further and move forward. If that giant exists, he must be
Georges Méliès.
Sweet dreams, papa Méliès!
