Le Voyage dans la Lune
The title of Georges Méliès’Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902) is usually given the English translation of A Trip to the Moon, the word “trip” being an apt one when the lunar voyagers discover a landscape of giant mushrooms and crab-clawed inhabitants similar to the Selenites in HG Wells’ The First Men in the Moon (1901). I linked to a copy of this film years ago but these shots are from the recently reissued colour version, a print of which was discovered in 2002. The new version also includes a previously lost scene at the end. The soundtrack is by the French group Air. The more time elapses, the stranger these films seem. Queen Victoria had only been dead a year when this one was made; some of the young women here may have lived long enough to see the Apollo missions.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• A Trip to Mars
• Lunation: Art on the Moon
• Somnium by Steve Moore
• Blood on the Moon
• Mushrooms on the Moon
• Filippo Morghen’s Voyage to the Moon




4 comments or trackbacks
#1 posted by sander
Feb 16th, 2013
You of course are familiar with Martin van Maerle’s illustrations on which supposedly the movie is more or less inspired?
#2 posted by Andy Dwelly
Feb 16th, 2013
For some easily digested historical background, and an all round good film, may I recommend ‘Hugo’.
#3 posted by John
Feb 17th, 2013
Sander: Yes, I know those illustrations but I’ve only belatedly realised that he was also the same artist responsible for some very strange erotic illustrations! I know the latter from one of the Taschen collections:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Martin_van_Maële
Andy: I still haven’t seen Hugo. I was hoping to buy it on Blu-ray but the only copies seem to be in 3D which my eyes (being permanently misaligned) won’t ever see. Looks like I’ll have to settle for a DVD.
#4 posted by herr doktor bimler
Feb 20th, 2013
[Martin van Maële] was also the same artist responsible for some very strange erotic illustrations!
There’s a Rops vibe going on there.
Turns out that Georges Méliès was also a talented painter.