One day in 1897 Georges Melies decided to take his new tool, an early prototype of a motion picture camera modified to fit his personal needs, out into the busy streets of Paris. After using the device to record his and his associates stage magic acts he wanted to experiment. The lens was trained on the traffic moving past the Paris Opera House. The crank was turned, opening and closing the shutter, causing the passage of film past the gate and exposing images one frame at a time. People were walking, going about their business while all sorts of vehicles were moving in all different directions completely oblivious of the magician and his camera. Suddenly the camera stopped, jammed. The image making ceased, temporarily. After several minutes the problem was cleared up, cranking resumed and the capturing of shadows resumed. After several more minutes the reel was finished. Melies detached his camera, closed the legs of the tripod and headed back to his studio/workshop in Montreuil to develop and print this short sequence. He believed that all he captured on film were the shadows of a mere few minutes of daily 19th Century Parisian life.
But when he previewed the finished product, something quite extraordinary was evident. Purely by accident, the science of motion picture trick photography was born.
Up until the time that his camera jammed, an omnibus had moved to the area directly in front of the lens. During the time that it took to clear the passage of the film gate, the omnibus had moved away and a hearse had moved into the space directly in front of the lens. At that moment – almost precisely – Melies resumed shooting as the hearse continued on its way. Later, on the screen in the projection room the omnibus appeared to instantaneously change into the hearse. The effect was definitely crude. Surely other occupants of the frame jumped about at the same instant, destroying the illusion of a smooth transition. Yet the notion was firmly implanted in the creative matrix of his mind: not only could the motion picture camera be used to record feats of magic, but magic could also be created within the entity of the camera itself. The very fact that cinematography was an illusion in itself made possible the element of being able to control, expand upon, add to, subtract from and in many ways alter the illusion and thus create something fantastic.
Since the very beginnings of still photography early photographers have created fantasy imagery with superimpositions, mirrors, retouching and the like. Conceivably, it is not outside of the realm of possibility that Melies was not truly the first to accidentally stumble upon the jump-cut or in camera superimpositions. Taking into consideration the state of the machinery that was being developed and utilized by the Lumieres, RW Paul, WKL Dickson, Sklandowsky, William Friese-Greene, George Demeny and other contemporaries, previous cameramen had experienced similar photomechanical incidents. Yet it took someone like Melies to use it as a creative beginning. This beginning was then built upon as he leapt ahead, advancing the art of filmmaking as an entertainment and communication.
But, alas, it was this colossal leap ahead that eventually became Melies decline. Because he had hit such a stride he never grew further as a cinema artist nor changed with the times. No set of rules or textbooks existed for Melies to go by. What was transferred to the screen was invented and honed solely by him. Yet it took others to copy what this amazing artisan had pioneered and yet develop it further. His prolific years ranged from 1896 to 1913 with the peak year being around 1905. In all, around 800 magical works were committed to celluloid. Other sources put the total output of Melies productions anywhere from 500 to 1500. Since it is impossible to get an accurate count since the bulk of his output had been destroyed one way or the other, the 800 estimate remains reasonable. Yet what a prolific amount indeed! These photoplays run in length from filmstrips of a few seconds to carefully conceived ‘moving tableaus’ lasting for up to twenty minutes. Most of this output has survived merely as titles in catalogues with brief explanations suggesting threads of plot and what sort of cinematic conjuring they contain.
What a valuable resource it would be if the complete product of Melies output were to become available to the researcher! One could spend days, albeit a professional lifetime, studying the genesis of each and every camera innovation. This ongoing study could trace the earliest experimental form of each optical ‘trick,’ the honing and eventual combination with other optical effects. Here is the milieu of making ‘the real’ appear ‘fantastic’ or even ‘surreal’ and in turn creating entertainment. This was the magician’s art. This was Melies the magician, Melies the showman. By 1902, with the world wide success of LE VOYAGE DANS LA LUNE, it became quite clear that his adept flair for the fantastique combined with the ‘do not take it all too seriously’ element was his indelibly imprinted style. He was the first true cinema artist to possess a style of any sort. Right up to his final production, LE VOYAGE DE LA FAMILLE BOURICHON of 1913 this style never waned.
George Melies was born into a wealthy family of shoe manufacturers on December 8, 1861. While his father expected him to work in the family’s factory his interests was in the fine arts, puppetry and design. He completed military service as a corporal in the French infantry and enrolled in the Ecole de Beaux Arts. Still his father had other plans for him and compelled him to work as a mechanic at the footwear plant. This mechanical training later to be combined with his arts training were beneficial to his later work as a filmmaker. In 1884 he continued his arts training in London. It’s at this time another important phase of his development blossomed, an interest in stage magic. Among the popular magicians that he observed were Maskelyne and Devant. As a boy Melies would often attend performances at the famous Theatre Robert-Houdin (named after the famous French Magician of the same name) attentively observing the show techniques and magical wonders of the famed magician of whom the theater was named for. Cut off from any support from a disappointed family he made his living working in a large retail store. Back in Paris he put his newly developed expertise as a conjurer to work professionally by publicly performing magic. He also contributed cartoons to a satirical publication named La Griffe under the pseudonym of George Smile. In due time his father retired and left the family business to be run by him and his brother Gaston.
1888 was a pivotal year. The widow of Robert-Houdin’s son Emile put the decaying Theatre Robert-Houdin up for sale. Selling his interest in the footwear business to Gaston, Melies made the purchase—a purchase he felt he could not pass up. He made some alterations and reopened it, determined to restore it to it’s former glory as a true theatre de magique. Now under his auspices the Theatre Robert-Houdin became a grand showcase for prestidigitation, combined with singing and dancing. All was pulled together with flamboyant showmanship.
The Theatre Robert-Houdin proved to be a good investment and became popular with Parisian nightlife. Always on the lookout for any new innovation to enhance the mystical qualities of the show he added the magic lantern as one of the attractions. Melies even then recognized the illusion potential of the projected image as did such earlier ‘showmen’ as Athanasius Kircher in the 1600s and Entienne Gaspard with his Phantasmagoria in the late 1700s. However, by the later 1800s the technology of the production and projection of transparencies became more sophisticated and more commonplace. Reportedly, the entertainment novelty wore thin and even the more gullible of the audiences became unimpressed. A chance meeting during a store front showing of a brand new wonder device was the next and potentially the most important happening in the conjurer’s life.
The time was December of 1895, around Melies’ thirty-fourth birthday. At this time he was one of the hundreds of interested patrons attending a showing of Louis and Augustus Lumiere’s Cinematographe in the Grand Café of Paris. Here were not only the most technologically advanced magic lantern images to be shown anywhere on the planet, but they were images that came to life as they moved on a screen. The program consisted of typical Lumiere fare focusing the mechanics of their device rather than the subject matter, ie, a train arriving at a station, the Lumiere factory workers leaving at the end of the day, waves lapping gently on a shore and – for the sake of variety – a brief domestic interlude of Mr and Mrs Lumiere with their child as well as the comic farce of a boy playing a joke on the gardener. It is probably this last mentioned projected film sequence that had affected Melies the most. The very nature of the comic action diverted the viewers’ attention from the working means of the projecting device to the human interest of the interaction between the boy and the man on the screen. Being the showman he immediately took note of the audiences’ reactions and saw the magical potential of the Cinematographe.
With their impressions ranging from greatly to mildly amused, the audience filed out of the café. The Lumieres readied for their next show. One member of these early cinemagoers stayed behind to talk to the talented entrepreneurs: George Melies. He explained to them who he was, what he was and that he greatly desired to purchase one of their devices. 10,000 francs was offered. The Lumiere’s reason for refusing to sell is perhaps the most incorrect predictions of the future of the Cinema of all times. They explained that Melies shouldn’t waste his time or money on one because the Cinematographe will remain nothing more than a scientific curiosity, with no commercial potential at all. The magician felt differently.
Undaunted, Melies utilized one of his many talents and rendered an accurate sketch of the framework, gears, pullies and other essential workings of the Cinematographe as he saw it in front of him. He learned of the existence of another man, RW Paul of London, England, who was also experimenting with the synthesis of projected movement. This device was called the Bioscope, a named that many other devices of varying similarities were christened. Doing business through his distributer, magician David Devant, Paul was more than glad to provide Melies with a Bioscope as well as a few film strips produced by himself and Edison’s group in the USA. The film guage was slightly wider than the Lumiere’s Cinematographe, being closer to the Edison device, but functioned just as well. Drawing upon his sketches of the Lumiere device and his training as a mechanic, Melies fashioned a working machine that was tailored to his own needs.
The Theatre Robert-Houdin now became a contemporary ‘state of the art’ entertainment center. The already popular stage shows were now embellished with the technological magic of pictures taken from life that moved on a screen. In the few short years since the inception of successfully photographed and projected moving images, audiences were becoming bored with observing anything that simply illustrated motion. This was happening with European and American audiences alike. The Flicks, as they were being referred to often, were finding a newer and lower position on entertainment bills. Short programs were being included for showings between live stage acts in music halls and vaudeville houses. Eventually they were being utilized as ‘chasers,’ ie, something that the audience would find uninteresting and thus be moved to leave, vacating the theater for the next show. To a point, this was happening with Melies’ programs of live acts and projected interludes. Yet the Grand Showman refused to see it being reduced to the most mundane spot on the bill. Something could be done to rekindle this yet-to-be defined art and set about producing short photoplays. These mini productions would now capture acts of magic as they were performed. As the result of an inevitable ‘accident,’ Melies discovered that the Cinematographe could be used to create magic, within the camera itself.
Remembering what the Lumieres had prophesized, Melies was determined to prove them wrong. He was likewise determined to fully explore the motion picture’s potential. With his experiments, creative endeavors and triumphs, the Cinema was born.