Méliès : la magie du cinéma

Georges Méliès, designer, painter, caricaturist, magician, director of the Robert-Houdin theater, decorator, writer, actor, technician, visionary director, special effects genius, made more than 500 films between 1896 and 1912. In the early days of the 7th art, he did everything he could to tell spectators fantastic stories, in imaginary worlds where all disciplines mingle. He has inspired generations. He occupied all the positions of the cinematographic chain. Special effects genius, Méliès prefigures George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Theatrical machinery, pyrotechnics, optical effects, horizontal and vertical scrolling, camera stops, crossfades, overprints, conjuring, editing effects and color effects on film, everything seems to have been conceived and used by this virtuoso of the technique. Thanks to his precocious awareness of the magical power of the moving image, thanks to his keen sense of the stage, Méliès profoundly changed the emerging world of cinema, and still exerts a powerful fascination. This book tells us how he arrived at his status as an icon, illustrated with more than 500 images showing his sketches, drawings, photos and stills from his films.