Papillon fantastique - 1909
ABOUT THE FILM : Papillon fantastique
EYE Film Instituut NederlandThe Spider and the Butterfly
Year: 1909
On exiting a strange cone a young girl deploys her butterfly wings. Mr Méliès is preparing for the show. In a puff of smoke, a star in the centre of which a second young girl appears, occupies the centre of the stage. As quick as lightning and the young girl from the star is transformed into a threatening spider-woman. But Méliès is there! With a magical gunshot the sprawling creature disappears in an enormous cloud of smoke.
His mastery of special effects through spectacular staging allowed Méliès to transfer this magic filmed in 1909 onto the big screen.
Nationality: French
Actor: Georges Méliès
Length: 1' 58"
Genre: trick film
Sound: silent with soundtrack
Original elements: colour
Producer: Star Film
Composer: Frederick Hodges
Original languages: French, English
A BRIEF HISTORY : Papillon fantastique
Before discovering the invention of the Lumière Brothers in 1895, Georges Méliès (1861-1938) became fascinated by conjuring during a stay in London where he frequented the Egyptian Hall (1812-1903), a theatre dedicated to the magic of Maskelyne and Cook. He achieved his dream in 1888 and bought the Robert-Houdin Theatre. Along with the concert hall Méliès inherited the appliances and automatons invented by the former master of the house. With Méliès at the helm for twenty years this concert hall was a huge success and became popular in the universe of French magic. All the elements of the arts that fascinated Méliès, image, stage and illusion were brought together there!
And it was while experimenting with the Lumière Brothers’ latest invention that Méliès first filmed his own magic acts. Transferring magic to the big screen paved the way for Méliès to create cinematic special effects. Méliès experimented with these special effects after a chance encounter between technical know-how and poetic intuition while filming in Place de l’Opéra in Paris: his camera got stuck, he managed to get it working again shortly afterwards but during this time the traffic had changed. When it was screened he saw that a man had been substituted by a woman and a local train by a hearse. The first freeze frame special effect had just been born.
He very quickly invented a series of techniques: freeze frame, splicing and superimposure allowing a whole variety of special effects possible. He increased the amount of magical effects through subtle editing taking surrealist montage as a starting point, before there was even a name for it. Besides the metamorphoses and instant or progressive apparitions and disappearances there was a significant use of pyrotechnics in Papillon fantastique. At Méliès these effects were given the status of special effects; designed and filmed on stage at the Montreuil studio they were then precision adjusted when the negative was edited.
Méliès’ reached the peak of his career between 1902 and 1906. However he was outstripped by the advances made in the film industry from 1908 onwards. To straighten out Star film’s shaky finances, Méliès returned to the stage and put on the performances that he had performed at the Robert-Houdin Theatre once more.
