A Trip to the Moon (French: Le Voyage dans la lune) is a 1902 French black-and-white silent science fiction film. It is based loosely on two popular novels of the time: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells.
The film was written and directed by Georges Méliès, assisted by his brother Gaston. The film runs 14 minutes if projected at 16 frames per second, which was the standard frame rate at the time the film was produced. It was extremely popular at the time of its release and is the best-known of the hundreds of fantasy films made by Méliès. A Trip to the Moon is the first science fiction film, and uses innovative animation and special effects, including the well-known image of the spaceship landing in the moon's eye.
Melies most famous film is pretty much as classic as classics go when it comes to the history of film. According to legend, Melies saw some of the earliest films as projected by the Lumiere brothers and immediately wanted to make them himself. While using his first camera he managed to get the film stuck. After developing the footage, Melies marveled as images jumped and created strange and magical effects. Melies realized that he could manipulate film in order to create fantastic effects. And classics were born.
At the beginning of every medium it’s pretty easy to create classics. A classic requires some combination of virtuosity, novelty, and entertainment value. If a movie is overwhelmingly and perfectly entertaining it doesn’t necessarily need to be all that novel, and if it’s genuinely and completely novel it doesn’t actually need to be all that entertaining. True virtuosity trumps everything, of course.
A Trip to the Moon takes Melies early experiments in special effects and uses them in a feature about a bunch of scientists who shoot themselves from the Earth all the way to the moon. Like, in a big bullet. Then there are big lizards and stars that look like hot 19th Century chicks and scientists engaging in mortal combat with umbrellas.
Instant classics are few and far between. They require skilled innovation, entertainment value, or sheer wild talent, and none of that comes along very often. When it does, it creates the kind of impact crater on history made by the films of Georges Melies.
A Trip to the Moon is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.
It was named one of the 100 greatest films of the 20th century by The Village Voice, ranking in at #84.
Melies most famous film is pretty much as classic as classics go when it comes to the history of film. According to legend, Melies saw some of the earliest films as projected by the Lumiere brothers and immediately wanted to make them himself. While using his first camera he managed to get the film stuck. After developing the footage, Melies marveled as images jumped and created strange and magical effects. Melies realized that he could manipulate film in order to create fantastic effects. And classics were born.
At the beginning of every medium it’s pretty easy to create classics. A classic requires some combination of virtuosity, novelty, and entertainment value. If a movie is overwhelmingly and perfectly entertaining it doesn’t necessarily need to be all that novel, and if it’s genuinely and completely novel it doesn’t actually need to be all that entertaining. True virtuosity trumps everything, of course.
A Trip to the Moon takes Melies early experiments in special effects and uses them in a feature about a bunch of scientists who shoot themselves from the Earth all the way to the moon. Like, in a big bullet. Then there are big lizards and stars that look like hot 19th Century chicks and scientists engaging in mortal combat with umbrellas.
Instant classics are few and far between. They require skilled innovation, entertainment value, or sheer wild talent, and none of that comes along very often. When it does, it creates the kind of impact crater on history made by the films of Georges Melies.
A Trip to the Moon is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.
It was named one of the 100 greatest films of the 20th century by The Village Voice, ranking in at #84.
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