In December 1895 Méliès attended the Lumière brothers’ first public projection of their films in Paris. From the moving images, he envisioned an opportunity to materialize imagination. Inspired by the novels From the Earth to the Moon (Jules Verne, 1865) and The First Men in the Moon (H.G. Wells, 1901), Méliès directed the first science fiction film, A Trip to the Moon. At fourteen minutes, it was audaciously long compared to the Lumières’ shorts of less than sixty seconds. Méliès also employed otherworldly sets, costumes, and special effects now widely used—zooms, crossfades, and superimpositions—to transport audiences where humans would land only decades later, transforming cinema into a place where dreams could come true.
2024
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French Landscapes and Interiors
Gallery 501The late 19th century in France was an era of rapid change: the emergence of mass media, new and faster forms of transportation, urban expansion of cities like Paris, and developments in industry.
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