Georges Méliès and His Rivals
Friday, October 9, 2009, 1:30 p.m.
Theater 3 (The Celeste Bartos Theater), mezzanine, The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building
Includes the following films:
-
A Voyage to the Moon
1902. France. Directed by Georges Méliès. 13 min.
-
Barbe-Bleue
1901. France. Directed by Georges Méliès. 10 min.
-
Seven Castles of the Devil
1902. France. Directed by Ferdinand Zecca. 12 min.
-
Impossible Voyage
1904. France. Directed by Georges Méliès. 17 min.
-
La Caverne infernale
1905. France. Directed by Gaston Velle. 2 min.
-
Stunning Creations
1905. France. Directed by Gaston Velle. 2 min.
-
Phantom Guard
1905. France. Directed by Gaston Velle. 3 min.
-
Tit for Tat
1905. France. Directed by Gaston Velle. 4 min.
-
Foxy Hoboes
1906. France. Georges Méliès. 10 min.
-
The Nightmare of the Submarine Tunnel
1907. France. Directed by Georges Méliès. 14 min.
-
Excursion dans la lune
1908. France. Directed by Segundo de Chomón, Ferdinand Zecca. 10 min.
While the development of film narrative at Biograph, Edison, and other smaller studios in the United States took a mostly naturalistic turn, filmmaking in France, led by Georges Méliès (1861–1938), leaned toward the fantastical, in the tradition of Jules Verne. Upon learning of the Lumière Brothers’ invention, Méliès, the entrepreneur behind Paris’s Theatre Robert-Houdin, transferred his successful stage conjurations and visual sorcery to the screen. His films, marked by the inspired artificiality of his sets and costumes, became increasingly complex and ambitious. The superficiality of these “trick films,” however, soon lost currency with audiences, whose tastes veered toward longer, more reality-based films, and Méliès retired in 1913. This program provides a sampling of Méliès’s films and those of some of his imitators. All films silent.
In the Film exhibition An Auteurist History of Film
Ticketing policies for film screenings
Sign up for now to receive MoMA's biweekly Film E-News
