Naval Combat in Greece
About Naval Combat in Greece
A naval officer calls his sailors to the gun deck of a man-of-war. They gather at the cannon while he searches the horizon. The ship is hit, and one sailor is hurt. Georges Méliès staged the scene as a news picture of the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, a war that had no sea battles.
Cast & crew
More about Naval Combat in Greece
Star Film catalogue number 110. Méliès shot it outdoors on a painted set. The deck was an articulated platform that rocked in front of a fixed camera, a device he reused soon after for Between Calais and Dover.
Themes
Background
The Greco-Turkish War, also called the Thirty Days' War, was fought in April and May 1897. Méliès put a sea fight on screen while the newspapers were still covering the campaign.
In film history
A current war was rebuilt in a garden for the camera, a staged substitute for footage of the fighting.
Making
The hit and the injured sailor were done with the built deck and pyrotechnics in the garden, not on a ship.
Look
The camera does not move. The roll of the deck comes from the set, which tips from side to side.
Technique
An articulated platform in front of a stationary camera produces the pitch of a ship under fire.
Preservation
Long treated as lost, it was found by John Barnes in August 1988 in the BFI National Archive, where it had been filed under another title.
Notes
- Méliès plays the officer.
- It belongs to his 1897 series of staged scenes from the Greco-Turkish War.
- There were no naval engagements in that war.
- The same rocking platform was used again in Between Calais and Dover.
Scenes
- The sailors turn as the shell hits, and one of them is injured on the rocking deck.
Influenced
- Between Calais and Dover (1897)
Also available
- Internet Archive (CombatNavalEnGrce)
