1897. Cinema anno due [3]: Georges Méliès: Grand Spectacle d’Actualités – Machines – Trucs – Grivoiserie et Tableau animé

Studio Méliès. From the Cie Proteo website. In 1897 in Montréuil Méliès built France's first film studio and the world's first glass studio. It became a model for all. In his Black Maria studio Edison used electric light; Méliès used sunlight. This photo is according to sources from 1897 or 1902. Please click to enlarge the delicious photograph.

Cinema Lumiere - Sala Officinema/Mastroianni
1897. Cinema anno due
1897. Year Two of Cinemathography
Georges Méliès: Grand Spectacle d’Actualités – Machines – Trucs – Grivoiserie et Tableau animé

Méliès: copie proveniente da Lobster Films. Lumière: Institut Lumière.
Méliès: 2K DCP. Lumière: 35 mm.

Introduce Mariann Lewinsky
Introduzione e accompagnamento al piano di Serge Bromberg.
Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna
There are no intertitles in the films.
Sala Mastroianni, 26 June 2017.

Mariann Lewinsky (Il Cinema Ritrovato): "The frères Lumière, inventors and industrialists of the machine age, created the cinématographe as a natural progression of photography; their Plaque Étiquette bleue (1881) had made instantaneous photography possible, and their newest device could photograph motion. Many of their cameramen were trained in chemistry or pharmacology; photography held a scientific allure for them."
"Méliès lived and worked in the much older universe of theatre and magic shows, a realm rich in form and content. In 1897 he greatly enlarged the scope of animated photography with phantasmagorical diableries full of tricks and transformations such as Le Château hanté and with other genres common to theatrical venues in 1897: naughty grivoiseries (Après le bal), acrobatic sketches of cops and robbers with amazing tempo and timing (Sur les toits) or actualités réconstituées from the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 such as Combat naval en Grèce or La Prise de Tournavos. (In those days, news items could become topics of fireworks, circus shows or mechanical puppet-theatres). Les dernières cartouches is a dramatic tableau vivant of a famous painting at that time depicting an episode of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. If Méliès had first imitated Lumière films, by 1897 it was the other way round with Alexandre Promio and Georges Hatot doing a dozen Vues historiques et scènes reconstituées, including a version of Les Dernières Cartouches. The one by Méliès is vastly superior, but then Méliès already had a big glass-studio built and was a master of stage machinery and elaborate sets – which he used for more than one film." Mariann Lewinsky (Il Cinema Ritrovato)

Le Château hanté. (Star Film 96, 1897). Paese di produzione: Francia. Anno: 1897. Durata: 1 min. Dati tecnici: B/N, colorato a mano. Genere: orrore. Regia: Georges Méliès. Sceneggiatura: Georges Méliès. Produttore: Georges Méliès e Star Films. Scenografia: Georges Méliès. Interpreti e personaggi: Georges Méliès: l'uomo. Le château hanté (lett. "Il castello stregato") è un cortometraggio diretto da Georges Méliès (Star Film 96). Del film esiste almeno una versione colorata a mano. Si tratta di un film che dimostra come, a circa un anno dai primi esperimenti cinematografici di Méliès, egli avesse già padronanza del trucco cinematografico della sospensione della ripresa, usato per far apparire/sparire cose e personaggi. Un uomo (Méliès) è ospitato in un castello, dove il padrone, che deve assentarsi, lo invita a sedersi su una sedia. Ma la sedia si sposta improvvisamente, facendolo capitombolare, e quando il protagonista cerca di afferrarla vi si materializza sopra una sinistra figura dal capo velato. Colpendola con la spada si trasforma in uno scheletro e poi in un guerriero con armatura, che scompare. Riappaiono poi un uomo e la figura velata che indicano a Méliès l'uscita. Categorie: Cortometraggi francesi del 1897. Cortometraggi muti francesi. Film diretti da George Méliès. Film horror. Wikipedia.

Le Château hanté / [The Haunted Castle]. Director: Georges Méliès. Year: 1897. Country: Francia. Section: 1897. Year Two of Cinemathography.

AA: Fiction, a fantasy film, a trick film, a horror film, a féerie. Wild and lively. A DCP from a hand-coloured source.

La prise de Tournavos / The Surrender of Tournavos (Star Film 106, 1897). Directed by: Georges Méliès. Production company: Star Film Company. Release date: 1897. Running time: 59 feet (approx. 1 minute). Country: France. The Surrender of Tournavos (French: La Prise de Tournavos), also known as La Prise de Tournavos par les Troupes du Sultan,[1] is an 1897 short silent film directed by Georges Méliès. Production: On 20–23 April 1897, in an early fight in the Greco–Turkish War of 1897, Greek and Turkish forces battled in the town of Tyrnavos (also spelled Turnavos or Tournavos) on the plain of Larissa. The Greeks were defeated and left the town. Méliès's film is a staged reconstruction of a scene in the battle. The film was made on a set designed in Méliès's recognizable style. Though Méliès usually staged his actors in theatrically inspired blocking and filmed them from a frontal long shot viewpoint, the actors in The Surrender of Tournavos are staged more three-dimensionally, sometimes coming very near the camera. Release and survival: The Surrender of Tournavos is one of four reconstructed newsreels (actualités reconstituées) Méliès made in 1897 to illustrate recent events in the Greco–Turkish War of that year. It was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 106 in its catalogues. In the United Kingdom, the film was sold by the Warwick Trading Company, where it was advertised as Troopers Last Stand and described as "an incident of the Turko-Grecian war". Other exhibitors advertised it under different names: in June 1897 in Germany, Philipp Wolff advertised it as Capture of a House in Turnavos; in the United Kingdom, Wolff called it Turks Attacking a House Defended By Greeks (Turnavos); and in the United States in 1898, Eberhardt Schneider billed it as Defence of a House, Turco-Grecian War. A brief report in a British trade publication, Photograms of the Year, is the only known contemporary description of the film. The film was presumed lost until 2007, when the film scholar Stephen Bottomore identified a surviving print in the collection of the National Film and Television Archive in London. A print also survives at the Centre national de la cinématographie. References: Bottomore, Stephen (2007), Filming, faking and propaganda: The origins of the war film, 1897–1902 (PDF) (thesis), Utrecht University, p. III.12, retrieved 18 February 2015. Bottomore 2007, p. III.21. Malthête, Jacques; Mannoni, Laurent (2008), L'oeuvre de Georges Méliès, Paris: Éditions de La Martinière, p. 25, ISBN 978-2-7324-3732-3. (Wikipedia).

La Prise de Tournavos / [The Surrender of Tournavos]. Director: Georges Méliès. Year: 1897. Country: Francia. Section: 1897. Year Two of Cinemathography.

AA: Actualité reconstituée, an enactment of a topical event at the Greco-Turkish War. The invaders climb over the wall and attack towards us.

Sur les toits / On the Roofs / On the Roof (Star Film 100, 1897). Directed by: Georges Méliès. Starring: Georges Méliès. Release date: 1897. Running time: 1 min 11 secs. Country: France. On the Roofs (French: Sur les toits (cambrioleurs et gendarmes)) is an 1897 French short silent comedy film, directed by Georges Méliès. The film was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 100 in its catalogues. The film features a bumbling policeman attempting to apprehend two criminals on the roof of an apartment building. "Every second of this," "highly successfully staged" "minute of film," according to Europa Film Treasues, "is used to construct the character's action and movements" and "made use of the theatre's three-dimensional decor," which "the competition quickly copied." The film was included in the Will Day collection bought by French Minister of Cultural Affairs André Malraux from collector Wilfrid Day in 1959 and preserved in the French Film Archives. Synopsis: A woman calls for help from her window as two burglars climb over the roofs into her house, tie her up and throw her out of the window. A policeman hears her cries and climbs onto the roof, only to be trapped by the burglars before they make their escape. References: Malthête, Jacques; Mannoni, Laurent (2008). L'oeuvre de Georges Méliès. Paris: Éditions de La Martinière. p. 337. ISBN 9782732437323. "A brief History: Sur les toits". Europa Film Treasures. Lobster Films. Archived from the original on 24 March 2012. Retrieved 12 April 2014. (Wikipedia).

Sur les toits / [On the Roofs]. Director: Georges Méliès. Year: 1897. Country: Francia. Section: 1897. Year Two of Cinemathography.

AA: Fiction, crime film, farce. An inept gendarme chases two burglars on the rooftops in painted sets.

Combat naval en Grèce / Sea Fighting in Greece (Star Film 110, 1897). Directed by: Georges Méliès. Release date: 1897. Running time. 20 meters/65 feet. Country: France. Sea Fighting in Greece is an 1897 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès. It was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 110 in its catalogues. The film, one of a series of events of the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, is set on the gun deck of a man-of-war ship under attack. In reality, there were no naval clashes during the war. Synopsis: A naval officer calls his sailors to the deck to assemble around the cannon while he scans the horizon, when the ship is suddenly hit and one of the sailors is injured. Production: The film is notable for the deck's realistic pitch-and-toss rolling motion, achieved using an articulated film set that rocked side-to-side in front of a stationary camera. This scenic special effect, which Méliès recreated soon after in his film Between Calais and Dover using the same moving platform, allowed for a degree of realism highly unusual for the time. Méliès himself appears in the film as the officer. The film was shot outside in the garden of Méliès's property in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, with painted scenery. The film, long presumed lost, was rediscovered by John Barnes in August 1988 in the BFI National Archive, where it had been catalogued under the wrong title. References: Hammond, Paul (1974). Marvellous Méliès. London: Gordon Fraser. p. 137. ISBN 0900406380. Barnes, John (1992). Filming the Boer War. London: Bishopgate Press. p. 74. ISBN 1852190469. Malthête, Jacques; Mannoni, Laurent (2008), L'oeuvre de Georges Méliès, Paris: Éditions de La Martinière, p. 92, ISBN 9782732437323. "A brief History: Combat naval en Grèce". Europa Film Treasures. Lobster Films. Archived from the original on March 24, 2012. Retrieved 5 March 2014. Wikipedia.

Combat naval en Grèce / [Naval Combat in Greece]. Director: Georges Méliès. Year: 1897. Country: Francia. Section: 1897. Year Two of Cinemathography.

AA: Actualité reconstituée, another scene of the topical Greco-Turkish War. The rolling motion of the battleship is effective. Guns are fired, sailors are hit.

Entre Calais et Douvres / Between Calais and Dover (Star Film 112, 1897). Directed by: Georges Méliès. Release date: 1897. Country: France. Between Dover and Calais (French: Entre Calais et Douvres), also known as Between Calais and Dover, is an 1897 short silent film directed by Georges Méliès. It was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 112 in its catalogues, where it was advertised as a scène comique à bord d'un paquebot. The film was filmed outside in the garden of Méliès's property in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, with painted scenery. The rolling motion of the ship was created by a special articulated platform, built by Méliès for Sea Fighting in Greece the same year. The set of the film includes a trademark with the initials "M.R.," referring to Méliès and Lucien Reulos, a colleague who was then Méliès's business partner. The film features Méliès himself as the man in the checked suit; Georgette Méliès, his daughter, as the little girl with the doll; and Joseph Grapinet, a sculptor from Montreuil, as the man with binoculars. References: Malthête, Jacques; Mannoni, Laurent (2008), L'oeuvre de Georges Méliès, Paris: Éditions de La Martinière, p. 92, ISBN 9782732437323. Essai de reconstitution du catalogue français de la Star-Film; suivi d'une analyse catalographique des films de Georges Méliès recensés en France, Bois d'Arcy: Service des archives du film du Centre national de la cinématographie, 1981, p. 52, ISBN 2903053073, OCLC 10506429 (Wikipedia).

Entre Calais et Douvres / [Between Calais and Dover]. Director: Georges Méliès. Year: 1897. Country: Francia. Section: 1897. Year Two of Cinemathography.

AA: Fiction, comedy, an enactment of a scene on a ship on stormy seas, perhaps the first in a current of comedy the most famous representative of which is The Immigrant by Charles Chaplin. The rolling motion of the ship is the source for the comedy. Visual quality: from a horribly battered source.

Après le bal / After the Ball (Star Film 128, 1897). Directed by: Georges Méliès. Produced by: Star Film Company. Release date: 1897. Country: France. After the Ball (French: Après le bal) is a short French silent film created and released in 1897 and directed by Georges Méliès. It starred Jehanne d'Alcy - Méliès' future wife, and Jane Brady. The film's plot is a one-minute scene of a servant bathing a woman, along with the scenarios before and after as the servant is helping her get undressed (down to a bodystocking which simulates nudity) while revealing a few layers of clothing, bathing her, and finally covering and drying her with a robe. This is the earliest known film to show simulated nudity.

Après le bal – le tub. Director: Georges Méliès. Year: 1897. Country: Francia. Section: 1897. Year Two of Cinemathography.

AA: Non-fiction. The birth of Venus in the cinema: the first film in which a woman is the spectacle in her natural beauty, as God intended, or almost: there is no nudity, as Jehanne d'Alcy is wearing a transparent bodystocking and a thong. Some commentators call this film naughty ("grivoiserie") or erotic, but for a Nordic viewer, especially a Finn coming from the land of sauna, this spectacle is innocent, with associations with Paradise: Adam and Eve before the Fall. This film launched a genre known affectionately in Finland as "Pariisitar kylpee" ("The Bath of the Parisienne").

Les dernières cartouches / The Last Cartridges (Star Film 105, 1897). Directed by: Georges Méliès. Distributed by Star Film Company. Release date: 1897. Running time: 1 min 11 secs. Country: France. The Last Cartridges (French: Les Dernières Cartouches, also released as Bombardement d'une Maison; Star Film Catalogue no. 105) is an 1897 French short silent film directed by Georges Méliès, based on the 1873 painting of the same name by Alphonse de Neuville.[1] The film recreates the defense of a house at Bazeilles, on September 1, 1870 at the Battle of Sedan during the Franco-Prussian War. The film was a great success and inspired the Lumière, Pathé and Gaumont studios to film imitations. Synopsis: A group of soldiers attempt to defend a derelict house, where a nun cares for their wounded, but the house is bombed as they fire the last of the rounds of ammunition they have gathered from the floor. References: Malthête, Jacques (1997). Georges Méliès, l'illusionniste fin de siècle?. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne nouvelle. p. 80. "A brief History: Bombardement d'une maison". Europa Film Treasures. Archived from the original on March 12, 2012. Retrieved 2011-05-25. (Wikipedia)

Les dernières cartouches. Director: Georges Méliès. Year: 1897. Country: Francia. Section: 1897. Year Two of Cinemathography.

AA: Tableau vivant, a historical scene, a live recreation of a famous painting, of an incident in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.

Les dernières cartouches. Vue N° 745. “La scène représente l’épisode bien connu représenté dans un tableau célèbre.”Deux groupes de soldats se succèdent dans la pièce et font feu. Une grenade explose. Un des hommes tombe, blessé. - Le tableau célèbre en question est celui d'Alphonse de Neuville (1873), intitulé Les Dernières Cartouches, représentant un des plus glorieux épisodes de la journée de Bazeilles (1er sept. 1870), la défense de la maison Bourgerie par un groupe de soldats et d'officiers français, à la tête desquels se trouvaient le commandant Lambert et le capitaine Aubert.- Il existe une autre prise non cataloguée de ce sujet dans laquelle on aperçoit un spectateur importun en haut du décor. Opérateur: [Alexandre Promio]. Date: septembre 1897. Lieu: France, Paris. Projections: Programmée le 14 novembre 1897 à Barcelone (Espagne) sous le titre Ultimo cartucho (episodio militar) [Dernière cartouche (épisode militaire)] (Diario de Barcelona de avisos y noticias, 14 novembre 1897).Programmée le 19 décembre 1897 à Lyon (France) sous son titre (Lyon républicain, 19 décembre 1897). Technique: Metteur en scène : Georges Hatot - [Décorateur : Marcel Jambon]. Eléments filmiques: négatif Lumière - 6 copies Lumière - 1 copie Edison. Pays: France. Ville: Paris. Lieu: décor. Événement: scène historique reconstituée. Genre: travail. Sujet: comédien, soldat. Objet: arme, costumes. Séries: Les vues mises en scène par Georges Hatot (1897), Vues historiques et scènes reconstituées.

Les dernières cartouches. Director: [Alexandre Promio]. Year: 1897. Country: Francia. Section: 1897. Year Two of Cinemathography.
  PC: Lumière.

AA: For comparison with the original Méliès film above, a Lumière remake of this tableau vivant, historical scene, live recreation of a famous painting, of an incident in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. Méliès is superior, as we all probably agreed.

Les dernières cartouches. Author: Alphonse de Neuville (1835–1885). Description: Français: Tableau d'Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville, 1873. Illustration de la défense de l'Auberge Bourgerie à Bazeilles par le Division bleue, le 1er septembre 1870. English: Painting by Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville, 1873: Les dernières cartouches (The last cartridges). French snipers ambush Bavarian troops, hiding in the l'Auberge Bourgerie in Bazeilles, prior to the Battle of Sedan during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Date: 1873. Medium: oil on canvas. Dimensions: 109 x 165 cm. Source/Photographer: Musée d'Orsay,

AA: Serge Bromberg in his introduction summed up that the first one hundred Méliès films were just like the Lumières. Georges Méliès was a magician, and films were magical in themselves.

This show contains actualités reconstituées, illustrated news scenes from the topical Greco-Turkish war, and also a tableau vivant of a historical scene from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. There are comedies of a policeman chasing burglars over the roofs and a ship rolling in stormy seas passing from Calais to Dover. There is a classic féerie, and the birth of Venus in the cinema in Après le bal, starring the full-figured Jehanne d'Alcy, the future wife of Georges Méliès.