I've been fascinated with the films of Georges Méliès. I recently watched 'Trip to the Moon' (Le Voyage das la lune) for the first time, and it got me all fired up about finding more of Méliès' films. I was able to watch some of them on You Tube. Such amazing stuff and I am just fascinated by the imagery. I'm saving up my nickels to buy a fancy $80 DVD set that has all of the films Méliès' made, it also includes a book.
Watching 'Trip to the Moon' was triggered by a budding interest I'm having in early 20th Century films and ideas of space travel. Or early Sci-Fi, before there was such a term. This interest was brought on by the following cartoon, Willie Whopper in 'Stratos Fear'
Looks great!
ReplyDeletei was privileged to see a handful of Melies films at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts several years ago and Melies' granddaughter was there to narrate them! i hadn't heard about the box and it would be great if it had all of Melies' existing films but he himself destroyed the greater number of his films so he could recycle them into boot heels- he was poor and thought his films were useless relics!
ReplyDeleteThanks!!
ReplyDeleteprof. grewbeard, that's so awesome that you got to see Melies' granddaughter narrate some of these films. The DVD set that I found is called 'Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema (1896-1913)'. It's a 5 disc set and the running time is around 782 minutes. There are other collections, but I feel like I need this one. It's such a shame that Melies destroyed/recycled some of his work. This also makes me think of early animation that is on the verge of being lost because some people might not think they are important enough to preserve. Makes me sad.