His nightmare is our entertainment

A Nightmare (1896)
Starring: Georges Melies and Jehanna d'Alcy
Director: Georges Melies
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A man (Melies) has a dream that starts out pleasant enough, but quickly turns frightening and bizarre.

At just a little more than one minute in length, "A Nightmare" still manages to deliver a ton of entertainment. Like most of special effects pioneer Georges Melies' early efforts, it moves at such a breakneck pace that if you blink you'll miss some of the magic and jokes. (And even if you're paying close attention--like some guy watching it with a mind toward perhaps writing a review--there's so much non-stop activity that you're likely to miss something. I, for example, didn't notice that the room changes more than once as the dream/nightmare unfolds until I captured an image for use with this piece.

If you're interested in film history, "A Nightmare" is not only a good time, but it's also a must-see. If you're familiar with Melies' work, either through posts here or from more reputable sources, you know that he commonly tells fantastic short stories where he uses his trick photography techniques to either transport his protagonist onto other words or into dreamscapes, or to cause supernatural forces to haunt them in mundane surroundings. As far as I can tell, this film was the first time he used dreams as a narrative device and it's also the basic template for many of the fantasy-oriented short films he made over the decade or so that followed.

You should take a (literal) minute to check out this great little film. It's quite well done, considering Melies was still developing his techniques. The only thing that could have made it better was a slightly different ending--I was hoping for one of the dream characters to show up and give a little twist... but I know that's not the approach they took back then: Normalcy was almost always restored by the end of any fantasy or horror film, (One VERY amusing detail is that when the version I watched was digitized, someone felt obligated to "protect" viewers from seeing Melies' shlong in his onesie, so they pixilated his crotch area. Hilariously, the eye is now drawn to his crotch now than it probably was before.)

Fun with Religion and Trick Photography

The Temptation of St. Anthony (1898)
Starring: Georges Méliès and Jeahanne d'Alcy
Director: Georges Méliès

Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

Spirits try to make St. Athony (Méliès) to give into lustful, and even blasphemous, desires.

I've seen "The Temptation of St. Anthony" described as the first religious film. I don't know if that is factually accurate, but given the innovative filmmaker who made it, as well as the time at which it was made, it makes sense. 

Although this is one of Georges Méliès' early films, and he was still perfecting his techniques, it is also among his best. The pacing is perfect and the trick photography involving spirits appearing and disappearing is very well done. The bit where Christ is replaced on the cross by one of the tempting spirits is particularly impressive--and I can only imagine what the reaction of audiences must have been ca. 1900.

This is one of the best Méliès pieces I've seen yet--and if all religious films were as much fun as this, they'd be more popular both with their target audience and the population at large. There are only two things that make me give it a rating of a Low Nine, and one may just amount to nit-picking.

First--and most nitpicky--while I love the excitement and enjoyment of creation that oozes from every frame of many of these early Méliès films, actress Jeahanne d'Alcy (as the primary spirit trying to lead St. Anthony astray) almost seems to be having too good a time. She got such a big grin on her face at times that it seems like she's trying keep from laughing. It runs a little contrary to the whole temptress role that she is playing.

Second, as the film comes to a close, I feel that it's unclear exactly where the spirits that were tempting St. Anthony came from. My natural assumption is that they were evil in nature, but the final few moments of the film seem to indicate they may well have been angelic in nature. While Divine Mysteries are all fine and good, I'm not a fan of them in movies, not even religious ones.

How about you take a minute--because that's about all it will take--to watch "The Temptation of St. Anthony" and let me know what you think. Were angels trying to set up the pious man, or was he staving off demons? It's embedded below, right here in this post.

'The Astronomer's Dream' is trippy fun!

The Astronomer's Dream (1898) (aka "A Trip to the Moon")
Starring: Georges Méliès and Jehanne d'Alcy
Director: Georges Méliès
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars


An astronomer (Méliès) is plagued by strange events in his observatory, culminating in it being invaded by celestial bodies, and an angelic figure with a heavenly body (d'Alcy).

Georges Méliès was a French illusionist who fell in love with the power of moving pictures back when filmmaking was in its infancy. He made dozens upon dozens of trippy short films that were full of inanimate objects turning into people, and visa-versa; people and spirits appearing from, and vanishing into, thin air; and even rocket ships traveling to other worlds. He is widely and accurately considered the father of cinematic special effect, and by 1898, he had already perfected his basic techniques and his films and their visual trickery would only get more elaborate as the Silent Movie Age progressed.

"The Astronomer's Dream" is a rollicking 3-minute long special effects extravaganza which I think is almost as entertaining to modern viewers as it was back in the 1890s. Although there is a story here (but whether it's ultimately a comedy or a tragedy is left up to the viewers' interperation), and there are a some actors doing actor things, the driving force and star of this movie is the special effects. They must have been awe-inspiring back as the 19th century was giving way to the 20th, and while we may be less amazed by them today--since all but the youngest of children or most sheltered of adults know the basics of special effects--the trippiness they bring to the viewing experience remains undulled. After all, what's not to love about a movie where the moon descends to Earth to eat the content of an observatory and disgorge some children? Or a movie where a sexy space goddess decides to drop in, just because?

Whether you're interested in film as an art form, or just want to spend three minutes enjoying a weird little movie that's as charming now as it was 121 years ago, I strongly encourage you watch "The Astronomer's Drea", right here, right now!