The Astronomer's Dream
About The Astronomer's Dream
In an observatory an astronomer, played by Georges Méliès, works at his desk. Satan appears. Phoebe, played by Jehanne d'Alcy, sends Satan away and vanishes. A globe drawn on the blackboard grows a head and limbs. A giant Moon face enters, eats the telescope, and spits out two small clowns, whom the astronomer throws back. He tries to strike the Moon and every weapon disappears. A goddess rises from a crescent. He leaps at a woman reclining in the Moon and falls into its mouth. The Moon spits him out in pieces. Phoebe returns, dismisses Satan again, and puts the astronomer back together. He wakes at the desk.
Cast & crew
More about The Astronomer's Dream
Méliès wrote, directed, edited, and produced the trick film, Star Film numbers 160–162. The French title is La Lune à un mètre. French catalogues split it into three scenes: the observatory, the Moon, and Phoebe. It restages his 1891 magic sketch Les Farces de la Lune ou les Mésaventures de Nostradamus, given at the Théâtre Robert-Houdin. The Moon is a giant puppet, with pyrotechnics and substitution splices. It was his third film, after The Haunted Castle and The Laboratory of Mephistopheles, to run longer than 60 meters.
Themes
Making
Méliès played the astronomer himself and had the Moon built as a large face that could swallow props. Changes were made by stopping the camera, swapping the set, and starting again.
Look
The camera stays put. Apparitions are substitution splices and a puppet Moon moved on stage machinery.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
A print survives. Wikimedia Commons holds La Lune à un mètre (1898).webm.
Notes
- When Sigmund Lubin imported it to the United States in 1899 he retitled it A Trip to the Moon. That is not the 1902 film.
- The two clowns are the children who had already appeared in The Famous Box Trick, made earlier in 1898.
- d'Alcy plays Phoebe, goddess of the moon. Méliès married her about thirty years later.
- The stage version mixed illusions with shadow puppetry. The film keeps the puppet Moon and adds splices.
- A subtitle in the French catalogues marks the three scenes.
Scenes
- The Moon face swallows the telescope and spits out two clowns.
- The astronomer jumps at the woman in the crescent and falls into the Moon's mouth.
- Phoebe reassembles his scattered body before he wakes.
Influenced by
- Les Farces de la Lune ou les Mésaventures de Nostradamus (1891 stage sketch)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (La Lune à un mètre (1898).webm)
