Le mystère Méliès

In addition to showcasing well known old movies from the golden age of cinema, TCM also boasts an array of films and documentaries they have made themselves. One of these is the Méliès Mystery. Georges Méliès was a french film maker who was arguably the first person in history to popularize film. Born in the 1860s, he would go on to make literally hundreds of films, probably the most famous of which is "A Trip to the Moon" from 1902. It's one of the most iconic silent films ever. Unfortunately, due to simply how old these things are, most of his work is gone forever. This hour long documentary tries to show what happened to Méliès' lost films, in addition to showing how much of a genius he was by pioneering things like special effects and multiple exposures. Today, these things don't seem out of the ordinary, but Méliès was born at the right time and just so happened to be one of the first people to do all this. Méliès' talents weren't just confined to his work in film, though. He was also a stage performer and learned how to perform illusions in front of audiences. Watching these things so many decades later still confuses me, and it shows how convincing of a magician he was. Later in the film, they attempt to find out what happened to Méliès' lost films, concluding that Méliès himself burned all the negatives in his studio because he was angry that a company called Pathe bought out his production company, Star Films. Because of this ridiculously impulsive act, most of his things are gone permanently, but modern film enthusiasts have manage to save around 200 of them. Less than half, but better than nothing. They also go over the painstaking process people utilize in order to restore Méliès' films to their former glory, which is a frustrating and tedious endeavor, but film history is well worth it. In all, I thought this was a good overview of what Georges did with his life. There are many sad parts in it, such as when he and his brother never talk to each other again or when he burns all his films, but he didn't realize at the time how influential he was going to be. We can only hope that more of his films turn up sometime, no matter how unlikely it sounds.

"The Mystery of Méliès" is an hour long documentary which is essentially in two parts. The first half is about the film career of Georges Méliès. The second half is about what happened to his over 500 movies...most of which today are lost. According to the film, about 200 of his movies remain, at least in part (I have seen and reviewed 160 of them). So where did the prints and negatives go? Well, the film tells you and the journey of the existing negatives and their preservation is fascinating and VERY important to film historians and buffs.

I loved this documentary and strongly recommend it. It is being a bit nit-picky but the film does miss one thing...how other film makers literally took a Méliès story and refilmed it themselves, nearly scene-for-scene, and passing it off as their own! Segundo de Chomón, in particular, was notorious for doing this...and talk about his and Edison's and others' knockoff versions was oddly missing from the documentary. A minor, minor detail....and no reason not to see the picture.

Film buffs will already know who Melies was, but for anyone else, this is a solid look and informative documentary. The only downside is Leonard Maltin's narration which is slurred at times and makes him sound like he's either drunk or had a stroke. Maybe both?

This documentary about Méliès and the mysterious appearance of dozens of camera negatives of his movies at the Library of Congress turned up on Turner Classic Movies. It started out as a 'talking head' documentary, with the ubiquitous Leonard Maltin narrating the English-language version. It offered the story of Méliès' life, well known to fans of these antique movies, and repeated the tales of how he had invented so much of cinema. True enough: that's one of the advantages of being among the first. However, it also repeated the claims that are demonstrably false, like Méliès inventing the stop-the-camera editing technique by accident when his camera jammed. Given that bit of cinema trickery had shown up a year before Méliès had seen a movie, in THE EXECUTION OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, it's a bit self-aggrandizing puffery, typical for the film industry.

Well, I suppose it can be forgiven. For a man who gave us so much, not just the many beautiful and still amazing films that survive, but the idea of cinema as an art of dreams, I am willing to smile indulgently and hope that another film will be found.

This is a documentary on early filmmaker Georges Méliès and his special effect tricks. It's great to see the old films, or what's left of them. It's a great life. The film is a simple biography. It has an interesting story about the early film business. This is very informative.