Journey to the Moon
The classic film of all time, also known as the pioneering work of early science fiction films, Journey to the Moon, this film, filmed by Georges Mérière in 1902, Merry fell in love with the father of theatrical cinema, in 2011 restored the film that has been more than 100 years old, restored into a color version, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Méliès's birth.
What really made the film break away from the Ichijing game and become an independent art was Mériès, known as the "Movie Magician". He borrowed drama
Form, using film to tell a complete story that conforms to the trinity, inventing the method of "stopping and reshooting", creating scene transformation, and inventing
Many movies: stunts. For example, animation, overprinting, fast motion, slow motion. Fade in and out, etc., these improve the audience's appreciation level,
It also transforms the camera from a simple recording tool into a dynamic modeling tool. Méliès's film, based on the 1902 lunar brigade
The Book of Conduct is the peak
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >, production, screening and distribution background and Mérieux</h1>
Born in Paris, France in 1861, he was very fond of painting and performing plays from an early age, and grew up to become a magician and a theatrical actor, and later became the manager of the theater, and he devoted most of his energy. In the theatrical career of burlesque comedy, so in the process of performing burlesque, often like to use magic, to add a lot of eye-catching scenes to the drama, and later these tricks have become very important techniques in Mélières films and its visual effects, we all know that in 1895 the Frenchman Lumir brothers screened the train in Paris, which is considered the birth day of the film, and on this day Georges. Méliès, who also spent a franc to watch the world's first film, was immediately captivated by the unique visual charm of the seventh art born at the turn of the 20th century, so he began his career in filmmaking, but we all know that when this art was first born, the photography technology and screening conditions were very rudimentary, many language techniques had not yet been invented, and the color and sound elements were quite recent to become part of the film. In other words, this convention and convention of the cinema, vocabulary, grammatical structure, narrative, etc. of the cinematic language of Méliès was not established, while Méliès created a series of fast and slow motions, stops and re-shoots the transitions and so on from the perspective of magicians and theater directors.
In 1902, his personal film career also reached its peak, and after the film was released, it had already caused a very big sensation, but with the rampant piracy, the poor management of Mélières' film company and coupled with the outbreak of The First World War, the studio was requisitioned as a temporary war hospital, so his film copies were confiscated, even as a source for refining chemicals, at this time Mélières' films, the career gradually went to a low ebb. Later, he had to sell the theater he had been running for many years and some copies of the film, and even sold them. For Méliès, who loved movies, of course, it was a humiliating blow, so it wasn't until one day that his beloved films were sold to a shoe factory in the form of scrap recycling, Méliès began to collapse, so in 1923 he took a hard time, personally burned all the film copy equipment and props in the store, and from then on he worked in his wife's toy store and left the film industry forever, until his death in 1938. George mérieux made more than 500 films in his lifetime, and only a few of them have been preserved, so it is a great regret for both his personal film career and the history of world cinema.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > II. Destruction and Rebirth of Journey to the Moon</h1>
Early filmmakers also used the way of hand painting on this film is frame by frame a picture and a frame of color pen to color the photo, so also released a color version, which highlights the fantasy color of this film, in fact, we can see this moon travel film today is very rare, because for more than half a century, people used to think that the film of this film can never be found, because the previously mentioned Mériès himself burned all the copies of the film in the storehouse, So the film has disappeared, and it was once thought that a copy of the film had long been buried in the fire, more than half a century later. In 1993, the color copy of the film was accidentally discovered, and then after three generations of digital technology to repair a lot of pictures, finally in 2010 this very beautiful restoration project finally went to the 2011 color restoration version, screened at the 64th Cannes International Film Festival, which is the 109th year after the greeting of the moon travelogue, and it also happens to be the 150th anniversary of Georges Mérieux's birth, so in today's color restoration, It not only contains the creative ambition of the magic drama and film art of the silent film master George Merière more than 100 years ago, but also embodies the spirit of technological exploration of early filmmakers in the initial formation of film language, and condenses the labor and wisdom of contemporary filmmakers who have worked hard to repair with the help of digital technology, which is a very valuable and important film history classic.
Born in 1902, the film incorporates a large number of Mérieux's own magic juggling effects, and through artificial sets, presents the audience with a beautiful fantasy world. Early filmmakers also used hand-painted coloring, that is, frame by frame, picture by picture, with color pens to color the film, so a color version was also released, which highlighted the fantasy color of the film.
More than half a century after the "destruction" of Journey to the Moon, a color copy of the film was rediscovered in 1993 and restoration began in 1999 at the Catalan Film Archive in Spain. The restoration was finally completed in 2010. The following year, the color restored version premiered at the 64th Cannes International Film Festival.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > three, the "magic stunts" of early fantasy films</h1>
First of all, in the era before the invention of color film, Mérieux creatively changed the film from black and white to color by painting on film, so we can find that the color on the screen is actually not stable from the edge of some color transitions, but it makes the film look like a dreamy sense with a "soft mirror", which enhances the fantasy effect. Second, the composition and articulation of the picture. On the one hand, Mérieux himself has a grand theater and has a wealth of stage drama experience, so we look at the expression of Mérieux's film story, which is presented in the way of dramatic art; on the other hand, because the early film camera equipment is very bulky and inconvenient to move, the vast majority of silent films are shot using fixed camera panoramic lenses, which highlights the stage sense of theatrical art. For example, if we look at the opening story three, the "magic stunt" of the early fantasy film, the third is the most important visual expression of Mérieux in this film, that is, Mérieux uses the special effects of early film films such as the drop printing method, the masking method, and the multiple exposure method, creating a classic landscape in the history of world cinema.
In addition, there are bizarre lunar spaces, strangely dressed aliens, and fantastic underwater scenes, all of which are represented in the form of complicated costumes and limited artificial scenes and props without any digital technology that is possible to create virtual reality images.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > fourth, the cultural imagination of science fiction genre films</h1>
"Journey to the Moon" is a fantasy film, which reproduces the Western imagination of the universe at that time, so it has the prototype of a science fiction genre film, and from the perspective of genre films, many people regard it as the world's first science fiction film, because the image style and narrative structure of "Moon Travel" are relatively complete, and it initially provides a film perception and cultural logic of filmmakers in the early 20th century.
Although "Journey to the Moon" uses "magic effects" to provide a beautiful fantasy landscape, but more importantly, Mérieux presents a relatively complete and logically consistent world picture from the perspective of the Western Empire at the turn of the 20th century. It created the immortal works we see today, and also opened up fantasy movies for us, which are worth watching and thinking about repeatedly today.