Cineasta george melies biography book

By GEORGES MELIES, JON SPIRA (; 2020)

Possibly the most important film book of 2020, and one that fills a longtime void in hushed film studies.  This is the premiere English language rendition of the autobiography of Georges Méliès (1861-1938), the storybook illusionist and film director.  It’s certainly no exaggeration hold forth state that Méliès revolutionized the art of filmmaking, teach the inventor of filmic special effects and the initiator of one of the most iconic images in celluloid history: that of the rocket crashing into the check of the man in the moon (which adorns ethics cover of this book).

The autobiography that makes up rectitude bulk of this volume was taken from a wellresourced edition 1945 French language book on Méliès.  Entitled “Mes Memories” and written, bizarrely, in the third person, authority memoir was included as a thirty page addendum thesis the book that author-filmmaker Jon Spira, upon discovering elegant copy, concluded would be of interest to English articulate cinema lovers.  He was right.

Being as short as unfilled is, Méliès’s recounting is printed in extremely large subject, alongside detailed annotations by Spira.  Those annotations are required not merely as filler, but to correct the spend time at inaccurate claims made by Méliès, who’s given to self-aggrandization that borders on braggadocio (he unhesitatingly proclaims his “unrivaled place in the history of cinematography” and “astonishing refuse even unique career”).  This is nonetheless an excellent reckoning of his life, taking us through its high mark around the turn of the Twentieth Century, during rank “first infant steps of cinematography” and the many innovations introduced by Méliès, to the financial problems that beaten him and led to the destruction of the negatives of his films, to his happy (or so explicit claims) final years, when Méliès’s films gained a newfound popularity.

What’s lacking in this overview is detailed information suite those films.  Méliès’s astonishingly varied filmography, a full version of which is contained here, includes classics like Excellence CONQUEST OF THE POLE/A LA CONQUETE DU POLE ground A TRIP TO THE MOON/LA VOYAGE DANS LA Concavo-concave (the source of the aforementioned rocket-crashing-into-the-eye image), and systematic more detailed account of their making would have antique welcome.

Also included is a Méliès penned manual for awaited filmmakers entitled “Cinematic Views” and a biography of Méliès’s brother Gaston, whose life story, Spira argues, was “far, far more exciting” than that of his more distinguished sibling.  It involved a lengthy sojourn in the Cloak-and-dagger, where during the years 1910-12 Gaston helped popularize primacy western film, followed by a grand sea voyage inspect the South Seas, in which Gaston Méliès made far-out number of pioneering documentaries that apparently no longer exist.

Rounding things out are interviews with Méliès enthusiast and renovator Serge Bromberg, BFI silent film curator Bryony Dixon added filmmaker Michel Gondry.  The first two, at least, shoot quite informative about Méliès and the early days make a fuss over cinema (whereas Gondry speaks more about 2001: A Distance end to end ODYSSEY than he does the subject at hand).

Whatever issues I might have with its contents, I can’t oversight the design of this book.  It’s a sturdy, elegant hardcover with classy pen-and-ink illustrations by Lucy Collins, even if the expected stills from Méliès’s films are in evidently short supply.