Director: George Melies
Year: 1902
Country: France
Language: French
While there were plenty of films made before A Trip To the Moon, none penetrated the imagination of the film audience like this. French Director George Melies was a film revolutionist who was far ahead of his time. When most Directors around the world limited themselves and their films to realism at the end of the 19th Century and beginning of the 20th Century, Melies dared to go outside the box and film a fantasy of incredible proportion. His film was also longer than most, while the average length for a film was 2-6 minutes. Melies' film was a staggering 16 minutes.
The film begins with a Scientific Congress in which Professor Barbenfouillis (George Mieles) tries to convince his peers and colleaues to take part on an extraordinary expedition to the moon. His plan eventually gets accepted, the voyage is organized and the scientists are sent to to the moon via spaceship. The spaceship lands on the eye of the moon, which is presented as a living thing with a human-like facial structure. On the surface the scientists meet hostile beings who take them to their king. All seems hopeless, except when they find out the beings are incredibly fragile and explode with just the touch of an umbrella.
The story of George Melies life and how he came to be the grandfather of Cinema is well known by now, as Martin Scorcese uncover many facts about Melies in his tribute to the history of cinema, Hugo. Born in Paris, France on December 1861 George Melies was a professional musician before he started his career in film. Back then "moving pictures" were more of a novelty at a circus and usually less than one minute in length. By accident, he discovered that he could use the latest stop-motion photography to use visual effects. He considered film a new form of magic, quit his business and made his own studio. Throughout his career he made over 600 film, the most accessible being A Trip to the Moon. Unfortunately he was unable to keep up with the changing film industry or directors such as D.W Griffith and had to spend the remainder of his life in poverty.
Both Director George Melies and his film A Trip to the Moon deserve their rightful place as a milestone in the history of Cinema. It has a surreal look and is an entertaining (even today) and groundbreaking film that showed than anything was possible in Cinema. He created special effects that were not seen in anything before then, It broke rules, conventions, limitations and influenced the entire genre of Science fiction. Like Star Wars or 2001: A Space Odyssey? Then you owe Melies a lot of graditute.
In conlusion, without Melies we might not have ANY of the films we have today. Film may not have been able to mature out of the Circus and might might have stayed a 2 minute novelty because without Melies. I have incredible respect for this man and his film and everything they influenced. Everybody owes it to themselves to see at least two Melies films in their lifetime A trip to the Moon opened the doors and struck a heavy note into the soul of mankind. Praise it! 5/5
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