Pharmaceutical Hallucinations

About the production

cannot be verified in Méliès' known filmography. Méliès typically produced his films at his Star Film studio in Montreuil, France, using theatrical sets and elaborate special effects. If existed, it would have been created using his signature techniques of substitution splices, multiple exposures, and dissolves.

Themes

Themes & topics

Historical background

Made in its country of production around 1908, Pharmaceutical Hallucinations belongs to the first decade of projected film. Its story of there's a chemistry lab, in which one or two people ingest the wrong drug -- apparently -- and have a seriously bad trip spoke to audiences of the day through familiar genres and topical settings.

Why this film matters

Archivists and historians still cite Pharmaceutical Hallucinations when tracing how the first decade of projected film filmmakers staged there and chemistry on screen.

Making of

Production details for Pharmaceutical Hallucinations are sparse in surviving records. Direction is attributed to Georges Méliès.

What critics said

Reviews from 1908 weighed Pharmaceutical Hallucinations on pacing, performance, and novelty. Later criticism reads its emphasis on there, chemistry, which through modern standards of craft and representation.

Did you know?

• Directed by Georges Méliès.
• Production country: France.
• Release year commonly listed as 1908.
• Pharmaceutical Hallucinations (French: Hallucinations pharmaceutiques ou le Truc du potard) is a 1908 French short silent film by Georges Méliès.
• TMDB identifier: 196662.

Visual style

Photography follows the dawn of projected motion pictures conventions for silent film staging.

Innovations

Surviving prints help researchers study editing and camera placement typical of the dawn of projected motion pictures.

Music

As a silent production, music was supplied by theater musicians or recorded scores.

What audiences thought

Patrons who saw Pharmaceutical Hallucinations during initial runs judged it alongside other silent film releases of the day.

Film connections

Influenced by

• Stage magic
• Theatrical productions
• Jules Verne novels
• Opera and ballet

This film influenced

• Fantasy films of the 1920s-1930s
• Surrealist cinema
• Psychedelic films of the 1960s

Film restoration

cannot be verified as existing in any film archive or collection. It may be among the many lost Méliès films, though its very existence in his filmography is unconfirmed.

Where to watch

• is not available for viewing as its existence cannot be verified in Méliès' documented works