Delirium in a Studio
About Delirium in a Studio
A painter, Ali Barbouyou, hides the whiskey from his servant Ali Bouf-à-l'huile. The servant drinks two bottles of paint instead. The painter beats him with a saber, stuffs him in a trunk, and drinks himself to sleep. The woman in the portrait comes out and dumps white liquid on the servant. In the piece that survives, she steps back into the frame, the servant swats the canvas with a broom, the painter cuts off his head and boxes the pieces, the body climbs out and wanders off, and the painter jumps into the painting.
Cast & crew
More about Delirium in a Studio
Georges Méliès directed and plays Ali Barbouyou. Manuel plays the servant, Ali Bouf-à-l'huile. Star Film numbers are 1014–1017. It was released in 1907. The large picture frame had been used in The Mysterious Portrait.
Themes
Preservation
Only a fragment survives, from the woman returning to the frame through the painter's jump into the canvas. Wikimedia Commons holds an excerpt.
Notes
- The joke echoes Méliès's A Spiritualistic Photographer (1903).
- Unlike most of his trick films, this one does not bring the vanished figure back at the end.
- Effects are substitution splices and dissolves.
Scenes
- The painter jumps into the painting and does not come back.
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-ali-barbouyou-et-ali-bouf-lhuile-aka-delirium-in-a-studio)
- Wikimedia Commons (Ali Barbouyou et Ali Bouf à l'huile (1907) excerpt.webm)
