The Killing Moon
People who have never seen a single silent film will immediately recognize an iconic image from A Trip to the Moon. When a face is on the moon with a rocket in its eye, many artists and other media imitate or refer to the film. Martin Scorsese’s Hugo is a one-off example. It contains creations and scenes from the studio of Georges Méliès. In short, it’s about Professor Barbenfouillis (played directly by the director), who has made an insane plan. In an alternative Europe, the men would wear military robes.
The film became a mixture of works by Jules Verne and other media about an epic adventure. Back in the film, the professor intends to build a large metal capsule in the shape of a bullet. The capsule later shoots itself to the moon with a giant cannon. Although others think his plan is crazy, his five colleagues agree to accompany him. The professor and his friends assembled a large cannon to board their ship.
After successfully shooting at the moon, they hit the moon’s eye and started exploring the moon. In a small acrobatic party, the natives of the moon have arranged for the moon to be magical, as the professor had promised.
Méliès’ Implications
After successfully killing their king with his umbrella, the scientists quickly climbed back into the capsule. After they escape, they make it back to Earth. People also worship them for their adventures. A further examination of the story, A Trip to the Moon, shows us how the story is not as simple as we think. The strange path of destruction that Barbenfouillis and his comrades embark on has disturbing real-world implications.
In one analysis, people consider the film to be a political cartoon of the director. It ridicules colonialism and intimidates militant nationalism. Reasonably, it concluded that Méliès was not satirically celebrating a violent expedition to the moon. Although it looks simple, it became a fairly complicated production despite being made in 1902. People need to remember that projecting a film for older audiences is less than a decade old.
The studio-to-star system is in an embryonic stage. On the other hand, Méliès created a new miracle in miniature. It allows his listeners to be impressed from the beginning to the end of the film. Because it was the director’s most ambitious project, it became one of the most pirated films in the young film industry.
The Iconic Image
Apart from being copied until it was stolen, the recovery became one of the success stories of film preservation. A Trip to the Moon became part of its longevity formula. If people look at how political satire is flying overhead, then we can see, with full reality, a contemporary media just like that. It’s just that we enjoy that fantastic adventure. Méliès created entire fantasy planets to captivate his audience.
Furthermore, invest money and time with little enthusiasm to see little praise and profit. Many people don’t want to powder the film specifically, even down to its molecules. However, there are thoughts on the subject. In short, Méliès embraces a play, wearing every actor’s artifice on their sleeve. The costumes and sets he intended to fool the audience with worked extremely well. Therefore, one aspect of the film that the audience often ignores is its editor.
In one case, Méliès used four shots in less than 20 seconds. During this period, it was not unusual for the director to make long scenes that the film shows without a single cut. The subtle absurdity of astronomy creates the perfect formula for memorable movie shots. When the man is on the moon with a rocket in his eye, the image is iconic.
Man on the Moon
A Trip to the Moon and its concept of a man on the moon are familiar to most audiences from North America to Europe. However, Méliès adopted such a concept. He brings it to a logical conclusion, making it plausible that spaceships are really “maddening.” As in many of his other films, the director also uses the technique of continuous substitution. It is a method in which the camera stops recording for a long time to delete or add one or more frames on the screen.
Carefully, Méliès stitched shots together one after another to create a magical effect. Like the transformation of a telescope into other effects, the use of theatrical means presents a soluble transition. The shot in which the camera appears to approach the man on the moon uses an effect Méliès created before the film. He put the chair he operated on a pulley on the ramp instead of trying to move the heavy camera toward an actor.
Such technical practicality allows him to control a face’s placement in the frame. On the other hand, a substitution joint allows the model capsule to suddenly appear when it finishes shooting. In another important sequence, the exposure follows an underwater flash of the capsule.
Interesting Observations
In A Trip to the Moon, it floats back to the surface, where Méliès joins the moving cardboard pieces. It makes many interesting observations. One, for example, is the most interesting because it strangely presents a fake moon landing conspiracy theory. When they were able to fake the landing, as in Stanley Kubrick’s, Méliès did it first. It takes their admiration for their subject a little further.
While today’s films require spacesuits to perch on the stars, the cannons in the film are not that different from how an actual trip to the moon occurs. It provides its artistry, which Méliès does brilliantly. On another historical note, in the late 1920s, the film talkie revolution hit. On the other hand, people regard silent films as relics. In the case of Méliès, he tried to destroy his creation, burning hundreds of his films after setting out to captivate his audience with unfettered imagination.
Most modern audiences will find it difficult to name theater stars, conductors, and even composers. However, it seems that everyone knows that the man on the moon with a rocket in his eye is an academic test in itself.
The Extraordinary Voyage
A Trip to the Moon digs too deep into the technicalities to kill such dreams, saying that the film is amazing. In the modern era, people can watch this film in color. In a documentary called The Extraordinary Voyage, he shows how the restoration of the ancient film works together to save a film that should not have existed. The film is one such film. When interest in early cinema magicians was reignited, copies of the film were damaged and incomplete.
In the first years of the film’s creation, Méliès gradually devolved into the much less commonplace fictional narrative film genre. He called it an artificial film. Besides his experience in influencing new genres, many other directors have tried to introduce a spectacular new plot. In short, Méliès draws a distinction between reality and the innovations that his contemporaries continue to produce.
Therefore, artistic films reproduce stage scenes. It created a new genre that was completely different from the usual cinematographic view of real people and streets. One of the earliest examples of pataphysics was the wave, which became a concession to realism. In a narrative’s interpretation, it aims at showing the illogicality of logical thinking.
International Entertainment
The satirical portrayal of incompetent scientists as anthropomorphic moon faces steers the film toward overturning the hierarchical values of modern European society. It combines magic and excitement to create a cosmic fantasy. As a result, it became an international sensation for offering pure fantasy entertainment. The film pushes the progression from fantasy to science fiction, showing scientific themes at work in such a realistic setting due to the camera.
Méliès concluded that a picture that tells a story can draw customers back to the cinema. American directors have credited him with developing a modern film narrative technique. It increased the importance of his influences in film history, including D. W. Griffith. To conclude, A Trip to the Moon is the first entry in a book called 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die by Steven Schneider.
He argues that the film directly reflects the director’s histrionic personality. When people say that the film deserves its rightful place among the milestones in world film history, then the legacy of the film will never die forever.
Bibliography
- Ezra, E. (2019). Georges Méliès: the birth of the auteur. In Georges Méliès. Manchester University Press.
- Méliès, G., & Liebman, S. (1984). Cinematographic views. October, 29, 23-22.
- Schneider, S. J. (2011). 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: You Must See Before You Die 2011. Hachette UK.
- Uhde, J. (2012). Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon in Colour. Kinema: A Journal for Film and Audiovisual Media.
