First off we have another film by Georges Melies (my favorite director by far as of right now). Barbe-Bleue is about a fairy tale with a guy who has a beard...that is blue. Let's watch!
soooooooo guy is looking for a wife...finds one...she finds the bodies of his other dead wifes...some chick turns into a key (which was extremely impressive by the way), guys beats wife up, then...dead wives save her?...the end?? Because this film is 9 minutes long and I have no idea what the Bluebeard fairy tale is about it was ridiculously hard to figure out. The problem with Melies work is that he only has one type of shot...so it's really hard to see what's going on (plus I have horrid eyesight). I do applaud him for his use of special effects mainly the key and all of the ghost stuff. For his time he truly was an innovator and I'm glad that I'm seeing his work.
Next is another Melies piece that only exemplifies is special effects genius, The Man With The Rubber Head.
wow...just wow. I'm floored by his use of the camera and just straight up genius. What else can I say about him? ...he's SUPERMEGAFOXYAWESOMEHOT! (hey there Starkids lol)
Now for an extremely famous film...A Trip To The Moon by none other than Georges Melies! It's even narrated in English!!
So I know this is like super famous and basically started the sci-fi genre...BUT...this is by far my least favorite work by Melies. I really feel like he worked too much on the sets rather than doing more (or better in a lot of cases) special effects. The stars...really? You couldn't have done a shot with just the faces without showing the actors open up the fake star to put their head in?? This is the same guy that turned a woman into a key but he couldn't do a simple shot...that he's done before!! UGH...he went down a couple of notches in my book. Certainly not as obnoxious as freaking Edison but good god I was not a fan of this. Although I do like the shoot a bullet filled with people through the sky and land on the moon in an instant theory of flight. Oh how astronomy has grown since 1902.
And last but not least we have ANOTHER Melies film (man this guy was working hard 4 films released in a year!) Le Voyage de Gulliver a Lilliput et chez les geants or Gulliver's Travels Among the Lilliputians and the Giant.
Another hand tinted piece by my main guy...who got his groove back may I add. The effects were great, the story was pretty good, and we even got to see skin color at the end! Also Melies used a shot that was close enough to where I could see the actor's faces!! Significantly better than A Trip to the Moon I'm a huge fan of this first incarnation of the Gulliver story, sans Jack Black thankfully.
Thus ends our Melies run year of 1902. I really enjoyed this year with our last film being my favorite. Come back on Sunday (I promise) as I start 1903 (which will have to be split into two posts). Thanks for reading/watching!
One really annoying thing about Melies is his use if the long take. It got really boring in some films because one shot would last a little too long. I actually love "A Trip to the Moon" because he showed the filmmaking world that you can show a different world in a film. That's what I love about Melies' films in general is his manipulation of time.
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