Georges Méliès: Movie Magic
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film studies
school essay
published 19/11/2007
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SummaryAs is the case with many art forms, the exact origin of Cinema is tainted with controversy. While numerous innovators played important roles in the dawn of the medium, the Lumière brothers (Louis and Auguste) of France are most directly accredited with creating the first “films”. Credited with inventing the Cinématographe, a device that could record, print, and project film, in 1895, the Lumière brothers were at the forefront of filmmaking as a technical innovation. Film’s transformation from technical achievement into valid art form, however, came at the hands of a different type of French innovator, Georges Méliès (1861-1938). Cinema, in fact, can literally be divided into two categories; pre and post-Georges Méliès. More so than any other filmmaker in the history of the medium, the roots of narrative filmmaking can be traced directly to Georges Méliès. His infusion of magic and fantasy into fledgling medium paved the way for the now-limitless possibilities of Cinema.
Table of Contents
- After the creation of the Cinématographe, Louis and Auguste Lumière invested themselves fully in investigating the most basic technical possibilities film had to offer.
- Georges Méliès, like the Lumière brothers, grew up in a well-to-do bourgeois family.
- While it is unclear how Méliès first came to possess film equipment, it is known, as Alan Williams points out, that 'by March 1896 he had a camera, and in April he presented the first film programs in his theater.
- While the visual tricks in Méliès films are certainly what stand out at first, it is vital to understand that at the heart of his work was a focus on fantastic narratives;
- Méliès' La Voyage dans la lune represents the beginning of what could be described as 'modern cinema?.
- After his film A la conquete du pole (Conquest of the Pole) (1912), Méliès gave up film production for good.
- Georges Méliès is responsible for numerous innovations in the realm of cinema.
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