The Magician
About The Magician
A wizard produces a table and a box, then vanishes into the box. Pierrot comes out, a banquet appears, and both meal and furniture disappear. A man in an Elizabethan doublet turns him into a sculptor. The bust comes alive, steals the hammer and chisel, and shifts pose each time he tries to embrace it. The Elizabethan returns and kicks him.
Cast & crew
More about The Magician
Georges Méliès directed and produced it. Star Film Catalogue number 153. He plays the sculptor. The changes are substitution splices.
Themes
Background
A one-minute Star Film trick picture from 1898, sold as catalogue number 153.
Making
Méliès stops the camera between poses so the wizard, Pierrot, sculptor, and bust replace one another in the same setup.
Reviews
Michael Brooke, writing for BFI Screenonline, describes it as an exercise in the jump cut.
Look
Georges Méliès filmed the substitutions himself, with the table, box, and pedestal occupying one stage.
Technique
Each new figure is a substitution splice: the wizard becomes Pierrot, Pierrot becomes the sculptor, and the bust changes pose between takes.
Notes
- Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline calls it another exercise in the jump cut, in the line of A Nightmare (1896) and The Haunted Castle (1897).
- The banquet vanishes before Pierrot can eat.
- The living bust takes the sculptor's tools.
Scenes
- Pierrot sits down and the banquet vanishes.
- The unfinished bust snatches the chisel.
- The Elizabethan man kicks the sculptor.
Influenced by
- A Nightmare (1896)
- The Haunted Castle (1897)
