Georges Méliès
Directing
Biography
Georges Méliès (December 9, 1861 - January 21, 1938), full name Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès, was a French illusionist and filmmaker famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema. One of the first filmmakers to use multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, tracking shots, dissolves, and hand-painted color in his work, Méliès pioneered effects that would define cinematic special effects for decades to come. A prolific innovator in the use of special effects, Méliès accidentally discovered the substitution stop trick in 1896, a method of creating seamless disappearing and/or appearing effects used throughout both films and television for decades to come. Because of his ability to seemingly manipulate and transform reality through cinematography, Méliès is sometimes referred to as the first "Cinemagician". Two of his best-known films are A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Impossible Voyage (1904). Both stories involve strange, surreal voyages, somewhat in the style of Jules Verne, and are considered among the most important early science fiction films, though their approach is closer to fantasy. Méliès was also an early pioneer of horror cinema, which can be traced back to his Le Manoir du diable (1896). In early 1909 Méliès stopped making films to protest Thomas Edison's Motion Pictures Parents Company monopoly, and presided over the first meeting of the International Filmmakers Congress in Paris. Further financial hardships created by his opposition to Edison and diminishing influence, Méliès disappeared from public life. By the mid-1920s he made a meager living as a candy and toy salesma in Paris, with the assistance of funds collected by other filmmakers. Although he was recognized for his contributions in cinema, Méliès spent most of his later years in poverty before being accepted into La Maison du Retraite du Cinéma, the film industry's retirement home in Orly.
Born: December 9, 1861
Place of Birth: Paris, France
Known For
Filmography
as Archivo de imagen
as The Melomaniac
as Self (archive footage)
as Self (archive footage)
as Self (archive footage)
as Self - Filmmaker (archive footage)
as Self / Various Roles (archive footage)
as Self (archive footage)
as Himself (archive footage)
as Himself
as Devil
as Le professeur Mabouloff
as The Magician
as Le locataire diabolique
as The Police Inspector
as The Roman
as Passerby
as The Old Farmer
as Le fantôme de César
as Le commissaire de police
as Tribolet
as Satan
as Professor of Astronomy
as Ali Barbouyou
as The Fairy Carabosse
as Satan
as Drunk Traveler
as The Bill Poster
as Rip Van Winkle
as Ulysses (uncredited)
as The Sorcerer Khalafar (uncredited)
as The Magician
as The Rag-and-Bone Man / Beggar on Crutches / Coal Seller
as Satan
as Mabouloff
as Man with whiskers
as The Magician / The Double
as The Executioner
as Mephistopholes
as Devil
as Prince Bel-Azor
as Devil
as Lamplighter
as Musketeer
as Robinson Crusoé
as Doctor
as The Magician
as The Hindoo Magician
as Professeur Barbenfouillis / La Lune
as The Chemist / The India Rubber Head
as Barbe-bleue
as Excelsior
as The brahmin
as Beggar
as Père de Jeanne
as Artiste
as All the members of the orchestra
as Wrestler
as The Man
as The Man
as The Magician
as Conjurer
as Fernand Labori
as le gnome de la pendule / le suisse à l'entrée de l'église
as Magician
as The Devil
as Le chevalier mystère
as L'illusioniste
as The Sleeping Man (uncredited)
as un profanateur de la tombe de Cléopâtre
as Conjurer
as Astronomer
as The Magician
as Le Sculpteur
as Saint Antoine
as Pygmalion
as Le marié
as The Traveler
as Mephisto
as The Man in the Checked Suit
as The Captain
as Man
as Mephistopheles
as Himself
as Le magicien
as L'homme qui essaie de dormir
as Un joueur de cartes