The Hallucinations of Baron Munchausen

This film was a fun one to see. Georges Melies has come a long way, since he did his masterpiece, A Trip to the Moon (1902). This one is fun too. It does repeat his normal staples, like dancing people, creatures who know acrobatics and lots of puffs of smoke, but his attention to detail and credibility of the fantasy he is trying to convey, seems more sharp in this film. He has had nine years to hone his craft. He tells a story, utilizing the classic, fictional, literary, German character, Baron Munchausen. This is the first film adaptation (at least the earliest I could find), about Baron Munchausen. The Hallucinations of Baron Munchausen (1911), would further the French director's accomplishments and cement him even more in the annals of film history.

My only real familiarity with the character stems from seeing the 1988, Terry Gilliam classic, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), so this was a cool foray into the character, seeing it in an earlier incarnation. This film does capture that familiarity right off the bat too. After a party he throws one night, the drunk Baron makes it to bed with the aid of some friends and falls asleep in front of a huge mirror. This is where the hallucinations start, which the audience gets to view in the mirror, while the Baron dreams. Lying on the couch, he is annoyed and assailed by an assortment of creatures, visions and eventually the Moon itself, or is it an elephant with glasses, not sure. It totally captures the wackiness seen in the Terry Gilliam film.

I hope Melies was proud of this one too. It didn't disappoint me at all. I do worry that some viewers might take points off of their grade for this film, because of a weird edit near the end of the film. Without giving anything away, I think that was a splice of lost film, that was never replaced. It wasn't the filmmakers mistake and I don't think it should be scrutinized. It just is a reminder of what the ravages of time can do to old movies. The Hallucinations of Baron Munchausen (1911), is a great commentary on the incredible, evolved growth, that the pioneering era of film has gone though, in the first 15 years of film history.

8.5 (B+ MyGrade) = 8 IMDB.

The good Baron has too much to drink and is put to bed. What happens next are a series of wild dreams. It's non-stop. We go from Egyptian pharaohs to female statues, to lizard men, elephants, Spanish conquistadors, and so on. Each provides a threat to the Baron and he is in constant distress. There are some clever effects such as using other actors too provide mirror images (ala Harpo Marx who may have seen this). The last minute is a bit unsatisfying, but the whole thing is quite a bit of fun.

I think at first Melies' putting Baron Munchausen in the middle of these hallucinations or dreams or what have you distracted me; this is why cross-cutting between different points of view became such a wonderful innovation in cinema, because prior to that, like here, you had to simply show the actor in the middle of the situation. That's what Baron does for the first few dreams/hallucinations he is having, which includes mysterious and alluring women, historical backdrops (ancient Egypt and Rome), and, uh, other women acting like giant water fountains spraying out water from their mouths in formation... sure, why not.

But what is in this short's favor is that Melies isn't afraid to get weird and disturbing with the imagery; on the contrary, he is soaking up what is one of the hallmarks of Munchausen stories: the bizarre, the alluring, the devilish, the exciting and the truly surreal. Oh, and the moon makes an appearance, or two or more. For those who come to this having seen Terry Gilliam's Munchausen (and this was just something I thought of watching it, ironically, the main actor playing Munchausen looks like Gilliam in a wig, major hammy comic acting included), the moon is a big part of it, as are the alluring women (remember Robin Williams and Uma Thurman?)

I think what makes Melies film distinct is how fluid all of the set pieces go, like in an actual dream, where one thing goes into another into another, and moments like the women suddenly turning into lizard people, or when a monster in a f***ed up suit (almost like a pet dragon or something with googly-eyes), it feels all OF a piece. It's all stream of consciousness and maybe repetitive in a few points, but it carries a boldness that makes this director's work so distinct even today. It's playful, erratic, and magnificent.

After a night of hard drinking, Baron Munchausen is brought to bed by his servants. He has a series of bizarre dreams and nightmares. He wakes up outside hung by his iron fence as his servants gather to help him.

This is a French silent short film directed by Georges Méliès. It's almost a decade after his iconic A Trip to the Moon. I really love some of the costumes, the set designs, and a few of the transitions. This doesn't have many of the Baron Munchausen story's most memorable scenes. He doesn't ride a cannon ball. On the other hand, this has other imagines. I really like the dragon and the moon. The camera is stationary which leaves the screen confined. It's still a fun silent short, but it was probably not pushing any envelopes back in the day.

This fantasy-comedy is one of the later works of "trick film" pioneer Georges Méliès, who started production in 1896 and made literally hundreds of these charming little movies before his career foundered in 1914. For viewers familiar with his style Baron Munchhausen's Dream (as it was known in the U.S.) presents a number of the director's characteristic touches, while for newcomers it may serve as a succinct digest of the special effects and comic motifs he had perfected during his fifteen years of film-making, rather like a cinematic medley of Georges' Greatest Hits.

As the film begins we join a dinner party of 18th century aristocrats, periwigged gentlemen and ladies in silk dresses, dining and drinking and chatting with great animation. It is suggested they move to the ballroom to dance, and most of the celebrants exit, but the host, Baron Munchausen, is too intoxicated to dance -- in fact, he can barely walk, and has to be helped to bed by servants. We notice immediately that his bedroom is dominated by an enormous mirror. Soon, as Munchausen falls asleep, this mirror becomes a stage-like setting for the baron's elaborate and disturbing dream. He travels to Egypt and is terrorized by the Pharaoh; he sees a trio of women (the Three Fates?) who turn into monstrous animals; he is menaced by giant insects; he sees women in Greek-style costumes who strike classical poses and then transform into an ornate fountain; he finds himself in a grotto where acrobatic demons tumble in every direction; he is confronted by a dragon; he is horrified by a spider-like woman in a giant web, then encounters a moon man with a bizarre face. The moon man's tongue becomes grotesquely long, and then his nose does likewise. When the moon man turns into an elephant wearing eye-glasses the baron reaches his limit of endurance. He smashes the mirror with a bedside table, then plummets through it. He falls out the window of his home, but fortunately his night-shirt snags on an iron fence and he is discovered by his servants dangling above the sidewalk, unhurt but caught in a most undignified position. We get one last look at Baron Munchausen the following morning, as he grimaces into his mirror with a pained expression.

This is a funny short as far as it goes, and if you've never seen a Méliès comedy it's well worth a look, but those wondering why his career ended so abruptly will find some clues here: while other directors were forging ahead with new cinematic techniques, Méliès was still producing the same sort of film he'd made repeatedly since the 1890s, with all the same effects produced from the same dwindling bag of tricks. The camera maintains its usual distance from the actors, with no close-ups. Méliès seemed to regard his actors as interchangeable puppets who were there to undergo transformations, strike tableaux-like poses or to react, but not to have any existence as recognizable characters. The movies were maturing past their infancy by 1911, and audience expectations were changing; the pioneer producers who survived into the new era of feature-length films were the ones who were able to accommodate movie-goers' new demands. Georges Méliès apparently saw no need to adapt or update his style and, as enjoyable as his films undeniably were, this creative paralysis was one of the reasons his career ended prematurely. Poor business decisions, exacerbated by the outbreak of the First World War and its impact on trade in Europe, were also major factors in his downfall.

Meanwhile, Baron Munchhausen's Dream is a perfectly enjoyable example of this director's work, and serves as something of a summation of his best creative qualities, but it also demonstrates Georges Méliès' perilous limitations as a filmmaker.