The Magic of Georges Méliès

Fifteen Fantastic Works by the Cinema's First Special Effects Wizard including the documentary Georges Méliès: Cinema Magician.

Director D.W. Griffith once said of French magician and filmmaker Georges Méliès, "I owe him everything." Charlie Chaplin described him as "the alchemist of light."

Méliès built the first movie studio in Europe and was the first filmmaker to use production sketches and storyboards. Film historians consider him the "father of special effects" — he created the first double exposure on screen, the split screen and the dissolve. Not to mention that he was one of the first filmmakers to have nudity in his films — he was French, after all.

Such films as THE ECLIPSE (1907) and LONG DISTANCE WIRELESS PHOTOGRAPHY (1908) not only demonstrate Méliès's astounding employment of double exposure, makeup, editing and theatrical trickery but provide mesmerizing insight into the social context of his work, which blended Victorian approaches to astronomy, superstition and feminine beauty with the unnatural wonders of 20th-century technology and heavy doses of slapstick. The centerpiece of the collection is THE IMPOSSIBLE VOYAGE (1904), presented with the authentic frame-by-frame hand-coloring and narration penned by Méliès himself. 

GEORGES MÉLIÈS: CINEMA MAGICIAN is a documentary on the filmmaker's life, integrating rare photographs, early drawings and numerous clips. It charts Méliès' rise from shoe factory worker to proprietor of Paris's mystical Théatre Robert-Houdin, where he learned the magic skills to become a cinematic illusionist and developed an interest in the supernatural, exquisitely represented in THE MYSTERIOUS RETORT (1906) and THE BLACK IMP (1905). 

• The Untamable Whiskers (1904)
• The Cook in Trouble (1904)
• Tchin-Chao, the Chinese Conjurer (1904)
• The Wonderful Living Fan (1904)
• The Mermaid (1904)
• The Living Playing Cards (1905)
• The Black Imp (1905)
• The Enchanted Sedan Chair (1905)
• The Scheming Gamblers Paradise (1905)
• The Hilarious Posters (1906)
• The Mysterious Retort (1906)
• The Eclipse (1907)
• Good Glue Sticks (1907)
• Long Distance Wireless Photography (1908)
• The Impossible Voyage (1904)

If you read the acclaimed book by Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, or saw the Academy Award-winning movie "HUGO" by Martin Scorsese, you know what a powerful filmmaker Méliès was.  Now see many of his original films, lovingly restored.  A great tribute to a magician and filmmaker and available now at Tin City Magic.