But maybe you havent seen the full 14-minute silent film (thats 825 feet of film) for yourself.
Enter French filmmaker George Melies, a man in love with the art of illusion.
Melies was more than a filmmaker of early cinema; he was a visionary.
Charlie Chaplin called him an alchemist of light, while D.W. Griffiths claimed: I owe him everything.
Terry Gilliam has called Melies the first great film magician.
He even had his own Parisian theater where he would stage magic shows (and later screen films).
At the time, however, the effect when purposely implemented was revolutionary.
The rest is literally film history.
A still from Melies Man With a Rubber Head starring Melies as the rubber head.
Melies wasnt just a film pioneer artistically, but also in terms of industry.
The plot ofA Trip to the Moonis relatively simple, but incredibly ambitious for early cinema.
It tells the story of Professor Barbenfouillis (played by Melies), the president of the Astronomers Club.
They crash into the moons face.
Once pulled ashore, the returned explorers are celebrated the townspeople.
In hisThe Hugo Movie Companion, Scorcese wrote of Melies andA Trip to the Moon:
Motion and emotion.
They were, and are, at the core of cinema.
And it was Georges Melies who provided the final key: magic.
He saw moving pictures as a way to enrich and enlarge his stage presentations.
In so doing, he took the movies another giant step forward.
Read and download theDen of Geek SDCC 2019 Special Edition Magazineright here!
