The Mermaid
About The Mermaid
A gentleman fishing at a lake puts the rod down and brings a mermaid out of the water. She dances. She goes back into the lake.
Cast & crew
More about The Mermaid
Georges Méliès directed and plays the gentleman. The French title is La Sirène. Star Film Company numbered it 593–595. Wikidata gives 4 minutes. The effects are stage machinery, pyrotechnics, substitution splices, multiple exposures, and dissolves. What looks like a traveling shot is the action wheeled toward the camera. A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Themes
Making
Méliès wheeled the set toward the lens instead of moving the camera.
Look
The approach to the lake is the scenery moving toward a fixed camera, with dissolves and double exposure on the mermaid.
Technique
Substitution splices, multiple exposures, and a set rolled toward the camera.
Preservation
A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Méliès is the fisherman, not a stagehand behind the tank.
- William B. Parrill has suggested the images influenced Vasili Goncharov's The Water Nymph (1910).
- The mermaid's exit is back into the water, not a bow.
- The catalog number is 593–595.
Scenes
- The mermaid rises where the fishing line was.
- She dances and sinks back into the lake.
