A Trip to the Moon
- Georges Méliès: Professor Barbenfouillis
- Bleuette Bernon: Woman in the Moon
- Henri Delannoy: Chief Astronaut
- Jeanne d' Alcy:
- Victor Andre:
The Trip to the Moon (original title: Le Voyage dans la Lune ) is a science fiction film of the French film pioneer Georges Méliès from 1902.
Action
At a congress of the Astronomical Society, Professor Barbenfouillis forward a plan to fly with a fired from a giant cannon capsule to the moon. While a scientist collects first objection, but it sums up the unanimous decision to undertake this journey and immediately begin the preparations. The six selected astronauts inspect the assembly of the capsule and watching from the roof of the Institute, as the cannon is cast.
It's finally that the astronauts can climb with their umbrellas the capsule. The capsule is pushed by some attractive ladies as in a breech-loading into the cannon. After a ceremonial hoisting of the French flag, the fuse is lit on the gun and shot the capsule. One sees how they the moon ever approaches and the capsule ultimately ends up in the right eye of the moon face. Then the capsule landed again on the moonscape. The scientists leave the capsule and admire the bizarre lunar surface and the sight of the rising ground.
Tired from the trip, she lay down to sleep. Above them, the stars and planets to life. About the intruders send Incensed this a snow shower that awakens the spaceman who flee from the cold in a cave. Here you will find giant mushrooms, and as Barbenfouillis rams his umbrella into the ground, the screen turns into a growing fungus. Lured from that, access to the Selenites, the inhabitants of the moon, the traveler. Although it is possible Barbenfouillis to beat two of the Selenites with another umbrella, whereupon the latter evaporate in a puff of smoke, but the Earthlings are overwhelmed by a majority of the inhabitants of the moon and out into the palace before the rulers of the Selenites and charged. But Barbenfouillis ripping his bonds, grabs and smashed the ruler at the bottom. In the following scramble succeeds the hero to escape and return to the capsule. Barbenfouillis teeters on the edge of the capsule apparently bottomless abyss, but only the jump of a straddled fixated on the capsule Selenites tumbles them down, toward Earth.
The capsule crashes into the ocean and falls first of all to the ocean floor, but then rises through their static lift back to the surface where it is towed by a steamer in the nearest harbor. In the city the adventurers like heroes are received and enthusiastically celebrated. The mayor gives the returnees to the Order of Knights of the trip to the moon, the captive Selenite is demonstrated on a leash and forced to dance. Finally dances you Ringelreihen to a statue that Barbenfouillis and science was erected in honor.
Background
Based on the novels From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by HG Wells created Georges Méliès with Journey to the Moon one of the first science fiction films. The premiere took place at the Olympia in Paris on 1 September 1902. The trip to the moon is considered along with The Great Train Robbery (1903) and the first films of the Lumiere brothers as the most famous work from the early years of film history.
Unlike Auguste and Louis Lumière Méliès was fascinated by the possibilities of beginning to tell with the help of the film fanciful stories. As a professional magician, he was with the use of theater techniques and effects such as hidden trapdoors or pyrotechnic effects familiar, and many of these tricks can be found in his films again. In addition, he set a new visual effects such as double exposures, split screens or stop action or stop-motion, with which he was able to create scenes that were not represented on the conventional theater stage. In particular, the sequence of the capsule flight with landing in the right eye of the man in the moon shows an example of the technical skills of Méliès. He acted in this film, not only as a director, producer, screenwriter and actor, but also designed the sets and costumes.
Due to the elaborate scene pictures The counted trip to the moon to Méliès ' most expensive productions, but also became the most successful of its more than 500 films. Here, however, he escaped the revenue from the distribution of the film in the United States, as technicians of Edison's film studio anfertigten secretly copies of the film and published in the United States. Other film producers publish black copies of the film by other names, so the trip to the moon was also listed as A Trip to Mars.
In 2002, a complete copy of the film in France was discovered, which is also completely hand-colored. There are many different versions of the movie, some of which contain scenes that were obviously filmed later. So ends up in a version of the missile in the open mouth of the lunar face. At that time, no intertitles explaining the action were still used, but Méliès had prepared a text which was often read to accompany the screenings ( to listen and American on some DVD releases is ). In addition, Méliès advertised the film in its catalog with a total of 30 chapter headings, which give an overview of the plot.
The images of Journey to the Moon have been cited repeatedly in the last hundred years. The gigantic cannon that fires the capsule appears in the science fiction film Things to Come, the man in the moon is found, among other things Baz Luhrmann's film Moulin Rouge in again. Original scenes from Journey to the Moon are used in the music video "Heaven for Everyone " by Queen ( 1995). The video " Tonight, Tonight" by the Smashing Pumpkins (1996 ) leans stylistically to it. An episode of the television series produced by Tom Hanks From the Earth to the Moon is dedicated to the production of the film and provides Méliès ' visions of the last manned moon landing of Apollo 17 opposite.
Martin Scorsese's Hugo Cabret takes up the story of Georges Méliès and shows some original movie scenes.
Reviews
" A classic not only of science fiction cinema, to the, auteur ' Georges Melies realized in a fascinating mix of stunning naiveté and impressive trick technical inventiveness. "
Home video release
- Since the extinction of the rights to the film, he has since been released from different vendors on DVD, so among other things, in 2008 and 2009.
- 2012 appeared in " arthouse " DVD " Georges Melies - The magic of cinema " with a restored color version and with music by the French pop group Air Then there is also a 65 - minute documentary about Melies ' career, the origins, rediscovery and restoration of film with the title Le voyage extraordinaire Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange.