Méliès Maker of Dreams
- Aug 8, 2017
- 6 min read
Martin Scorsese's 2011 period piece Hugo brought Brian Selznick’s novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret,[1] to life. The tale of a young orphan (Asa Butterfield) living in the clockwork maze of the walls of Gare Montparnasse unfolds quickly before the viewer's eyes in beautiful 3-D. Raised by his father (Jude Law), a tinkerer and repair man for a museum, Hugo was a mechanically minded boy who lived and worked happily with his father until one day a fire took all of that away. Now living with his drunken uncle, Hugo lives like a rat winding through the steamy walls of the station dodging the inspector, Sacha Baron Cohen, stealing croissants to survive and machine parts to fix the only thing he has left of his father: a broken automata. This is when he meets an unlikely friend, George Méliès (Ben Kingsley) running the toy and sweet shop in the station. Unknown to Hugo, Méliès was once a famous magician and filmmaker as well as the maker of his automata. With Scorsese's use of 3-D, Cinematography, and costumes this film made me feel like I was a child listening to a bedtime story for the first time.
The story of Hugo caught my attention immediately as admittedly, I am a sucker for a decent period piece. Specifically automata and the steampunk technology of the early twentieth century have often been an interest of mine. This is the period we began to see the true might of man. Steam ships traversed the globe, trains connected countries making days of travel into hour, and steel framed buildings towered over the streets of major cities like Paris. So, naturally, the story of the father of special effects and automata was right up my alley, yet I found my interest leaning more toward Méliès and his tale and not that of Hugo. Mostly because, though not entirely accurate, his story was true.
Let's start with what was true in Selznick’s tale. Méliès did have a collection of automata that he maintained and eventually donated to a museum. Many of them did fall into disrepair and were discarded and lost to history,[2] thus the inspiration for Selznick's novel can start there. Sadly, Méliès did not actually make any automata like the film shows. Instead, they were inherited from the great Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin after Méliès purchased the Théâtre Robert-Houdin in 1888. Houdin, the father of magic as we know it, was also a brilliant inventor and hand crafted many of his magnificent automata (fig 1). Sadly, their golden age was long past by the turn of the century. This changed my view of the automata in the film, turning it from this magnificent magical object into a vehicle that led me to Méliès and his real history, much like the fictional automata led Hugo to him.
Figure 1.
Now the sad tale of Georges Méliès was exceptionally close to reality. He did have a sweet shop in the Gare Montparnasse where he spent most of his later life after the demise of Star Film Company. Yet this is where it separates from Selznick's tale as Méliès was far from forgotten. More so the dissolution of Star Film company, his company, was only partially due to the war and some may in fact have been saved because of it.
Méliès films were something new to the world. Though not the first person to make special effects [The first special effects appeared in Edison’s Mary Queen of Scots (1895)] he is considered the father of special effects as almost all of his films revolved around them. This was his way of using the camera to make magic. Using double exposure, replacement, and splicing through trial and error he created over 500 films with a large focus on fantasy instead of drama (fig. 2). As the effects were the focus of many of the films, the plot was largely irrelevant and many of the films were quite short. This gave Mélièse measured success in both Europe and America, but with any business comes competition.
Figure 2.
The Edison Company had stolen and used many of Méliès pictures in the past which was not uncommon as remakes and infringement occurred quite often in these early days of filmmaking. Méliès’ first film, Playing Cards (1896), is actually considered the first film remake ever and was of Louis Lumiere's The Messers. Lumière at Cards (1895). So to bring the entire industry of Europe and America under one flag, Edison founded the Motion Picture Patents Company in 1908. Strict production quotas were then set requiring Méliès to produce 1,000 feet of film a week. In the years that followed, Mélièse would produce scores of films under the demand of these quotas, yet sadly the final nail in the coffin of Star Films was actually Méliès’ own brother.
After the international success Méliès had after the release of his 1902 film A Trip to the Moon (fig.3), which we saw in Hugo, Méliès started an American branch of Star Films in New York City to, “pursue all counterfeiters and pirates”[3] that might steal protected films. This branch was run by his brother Gaston Méliès who later went on to open a studio in Chicago to aid in completing the obligation to Edison’s film quota. All was well and good until Gaston decided to take his entire family and a film crew of over 20 to Tahiti and the Asian South Pacific from the summer of 1912 into 1913. The film was mailed back and was either damaged or rendered unwatchable, leaving Mélièse far short of his quota. Not only did this leave Méliès unable to fulfill his obligation but Gaston also racked up fifty thousand dollars in losses. Forced to sell the American studio, Gaston returned to France a disgrace and would never speak to Méliès before his death shortly after in 1915.
Figure 3.
Breaking his contract in 1913 Mélièse was bankrupt living in poverty. Star Films was only saved from seizure because of a moratorium that was put in effect at the start of the war. This is when we come back once again to the events of the film. Instead of the dramatic selling and burning of his reels, the sad reality is that the French army actually confiscated over 400 original prints, melted them down, and turned them into shoe heels like we saw in the movie. This involuntary destruction of his films might be one of the single greatest losses to film history ever.[3] It wasn’t until 1923 that the repression of his company and studio drove him to burn his negatives as well as props, sets, and costumes rather than let them fall to his competitors. This is when Méliès lands at the shop in the station where our story begins.
Though Hugo is supposedly set sometime in the thirties, Méliès did have a resurgence of interest by reporters and film historians leading to a retrospective of his work in 1929 at the Salle Pleyel.[3] Despite the recognition and acclaim, Méliès would still spend the rest of his life in relative poverty supported by the film community. In 1932 he was moved to the La Maison du Retraite du Cinéma, a retirement home run by the film industry where he would spend the rest of his life working with young directors and continuing to draw until his final day. The best and most defining quote came just a few days before his death in 1938, he greeted visiting friends with a drawing of a popped champagne bottle overflowing with bubble stating, “Laugh, my friends. Laugh with me, laugh for me, because I dream your dreams.”[4]
After watching the movie and doing my background research that quote resonated with me. As a creative, ignoring all definitions and pretext, my goal has always been to bring what's in my head to life. Whether that is on paper, film, or physical manifestation this desire to spill my guts to the world at large is unavoidable. This made the tale of Méliès relatable to any struggling artist past and present, yet what defined him was the birth of film as we know it. Like the good book says, there’s nothing new under the sun, but for Méliès that was not the case. With today's crowded and polluted media there is very little that hasn’t been done for film or television, Méliès was blessed and challenged with a blank slate. This allowed him to send a man to the moon, to bring monsters to life, fairy tales, and magic that defied logic.
Méliès life and story leave me speechless. I can only hope to have the life that Méliès lived. I don’t mean it in a covetous way desiring his early success or the fame. I hope to have his life because he spent it making dreams, shaping filmmakers of his generation and future generations. Fame fades, money saved is wasted by future generations, but he left his mark on millions and is continuing to do so through Scorsese's film as well as his own surviving films. The romanticization of Méliès’s life in Hugo was well worth watching and his real life one worth living.
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. (n.d.). Retrieved March 07, 2017, from http://www.theinventionofhugocabret.com/about_hugo_auto.htm
Wood, Gaby. Edison’s Eve. Anchor, New York, Anchor, 2002
Rosen, Miriam (1987), "Méliès, Georges", in Wakeman, John, World Film Directors: Volume I, 1890–1945, New York: The H. W. Wilson Company, pp. 747–765
Myrent, Glenn & Langlois, Georges P.. Henri Langlois: First Citizen of Cinema. Twayne Publishers. 1986. p. 40.
Editor: Shannon Schroeder
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