Cinderella
About Cinderella
Cinderella's stepmother leaves her behind. The fairy godmother conjures a coach, attendants, and a dress, and tells her to be back by midnight. She dances with the prince. At twelve the spell breaks in front of the ballroom and she runs. The prince keeps her slipper. In her room a clock chases her, a gnome strikes twelve, and dancers turn into clocks. She wakes. The prince arrives with the slipper and knows her.
Cast & crew
More about Cinderella
Georges Méliès produced, directed, and photographed Cendrillon for his Star Film Company. The catalogue number is 219–224, where it is billed as a grande féerie extraordinaire en 20 tableaux. He used six sets and five changes of scene. The twenty tableaux in the catalogue break the action into smaller beats. Mlle Barral plays Cinderella, Bleuette Bernon the fairy godmother, Carmelli the prince, Jehanne d'Alcy the queen, Dupeyron a guest, and Méliès the genie of the midnight clock and a halberdier. The look follows Gustave Doré's engravings for Perrault. Méliès also had in mind a 1896 staging at the Théâtre de la Galerie-Vivienne, played at his Théâtre Robert-Houdin in 1897, and an 1895 production at the Théâtre du Châtelet. It opened in France in October 1899 and in the United States on December 25, 1899.
Themes
Making
The ball, the transformation, and the nightmare are played on painted sets in Méliès's studio. The midnight gnome and the dancers who become clocks are the same substitution method he used for his trick subjects, stretched across six scenes.
Audiences
The film did well in French fairground shows and in European and American music halls. It was Méliès's first large success.
Look
Méliès photographed six sets. Changes of scene use dissolves, and the transformations use substitution splices and multiple exposure.
Technique
The film joins six sets with dissolves and plays the godmother's magic and the clock nightmare as substitution splices. It is Méliès's first picture built from more than one scene.
Preservation
Prints survive. A digital copy is on Wikimedia Commons, and the Internet Archive holds a copy under the identifier Cendrilloncinderella.
Notes
- It is the first known film of Perrault's Cinderella, and Méliès's first film with more than one scene.
- So many extras were hired that Méliès named a chief extra to lead them.
- Bleuette Bernon, the godmother, later played Phoebe in A Trip to the Moon. Jehanne d'Alcy became Méliès's second wife.
- The tricks are multiple exposures, dissolves, and substitution splices.
- Méliès filmed the story again in 1912 as Cinderella or the Glass Slipper, under Pathé, with Ferdinand Zecca and Charles Pathé also involved. That version failed.
- A viewing copy runs about 5 minutes 42 seconds. Published timings say 6 minutes.
Scenes
- The godmother turns rags, a pumpkin, and the kitchen into a dress, a coach, and attendants.
- At midnight Cinderella is ragged again in front of the ball, and the prince is left with the slipper.
- A clock gnome strikes twelve in her bedroom while dancers turn into clocks and then into one giant clock.
Influenced by
- Charles Perrault's Cinderella
- Gustave Doré's illustrations for Perrault
- The 1895 Théâtre du Châtelet production
Also available
- Internet Archive (Cendrilloncinderella)
- Wikimedia Commons (Cinderella (1899 film).webm)
