By JOHN ALLEN
All films may be regarded as fantasy, in a general sense, for with very few exceptions, they are a form of escapism, of presenting life as one would like it to be, and not as it really is.
But we are concerned with the narrower limits of Fantasy and Science, and the man who discovered the potentialities of the film for fantasy and science was George Melies.
He gained his grounding in the Houdini Theatre in Paris, and when he entered the craft of film production he put his knowledge of illusions and trickery to good use, implementing the standard usages of film-craft, and discovering new ones.
Quickly, he realised anything, however improbable, could be given an air of reality, and on this he proceeded to capitalise. In the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth, he turned out a string of fantasy films, remarkable for their ideas and finish, even by modern standards.
Typical titles were "The Bewitched" (in 1896), "The Devil's Castle," and "The Laboratory of Mephistopholes." then after 1900 the accent turned slightly from the truly "fantastic" to the "pseudo-scientific," a spate of this latter type being produced, which have been described as "a delightful combination in which monstrous machines from 'La Science et la Vie' were allied to Jules Verne's plots."
Amongst these was "A Trip to the Moon" in which the intrepid explorers were shot moonwards from a gigantic gun; apparently they found the Moon had an atmosphere, for the film shows them wandering around in knee-breeches and periwigs, and other normal apparel of their day, without any obvious discomfort.
Melies' remarkable foresight may be seen from the titles of such films as "Under the Sea," "Rip Van Winkle," and "An Impossible Voyage."
In 1912 he produced "Conquest of the Pole," with a bearded Father Pole who devoured any explorers who unwarily ventured near.
With these films Melies opened the road for the fantasy film directors of the future; his pupil Abel Gance directed "The Folly of Dr. Tube" which was the direct forerunner of "Caligara," with the technique used in the production, and the strange surrealistic backgrounds to the story of a madman who succeeded in breaking up light rays and creating a strange world of deformities. Gance continued the movement begun by Melies, a movement which has led directly to such epics as Wells' "Things to Come," and the more recent "A Matter of Life and Death." It may truly be said that Melies was the Father of the Fantasy Film ... let us hope that his children, at present being considered by film producers, may be worthy of his name.
Data entry by Judy Bemis
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