The Fairy of the Black Rocks
About The Fairy of the Black Rocks
In a dark Breton set, an old woman struggles with a bundle of firewood. A clumsy young peasant, called Gwiou in the Pathé note, refuses to help and lies down to sleep. She becomes a fairy, Koridwen in that note, and the scenery turns on him: a flood, a tree that becomes a lion-totem, a black mountain with a face that seizes his hand, and four rat-faced imps who beat him. He wakes into a snowy graveyard, then begs the fairy, who rides a car drawn by two swans.
Cast & crew
More about The Fairy of the Black Rocks
Segundo de Chomón directed the trick film for Pathé. Julienne Mathieu plays the fairy. Pathé's archive note places the scene in Brittany and names the man Gwiou and the fairy Koridwen. The film repeats the scenario of Ferdinand Zecca's 1902 picture of the same French title.
Themes
Making
Chomón stages the punishment as a run of substitutions: water, a totem, a mountain-face, imps, a cemetery, and a swan-drawn car.
Technique
Stop-substitution changes the sleeping man from a hillside to a flood, a living mountain, and a graveyard without a cut the audience is meant to notice.
Notes
- The French title is La Fée des roches noires.
- A French filmography of Mathieu times her 1907 Pathé short at about three minutes.
- One listing gives 2 minutes 48 seconds.
- It is a remake of Zecca's 1902 La Fée des roches noires, with the same story.
Scenes
- Gwiou refuses the bundle and stretches out to sleep.
- The black mountain opens a mouth and catches his hand.
- The fairy leaves on a car pulled by two swans.
Influenced by
- Ferdinand Zecca's La Fée des roches noires (1902)
