The Pillar of Fire
About The Pillar of Fire
A devil capers in a huge fireplace and lights a fire. A young woman in white robes rises out of a giant skillet. As the smoke climbs, she dances a serpentine turn, her skirts looking more and more like flame, until she vanishes in a burst of fire.
Cast & crew
More about The Pillar of Fire
Georges Méliès directed and produced the trick film for Star Film, catalogue number 188. In the United States and Britain it was first sold as Haggard's “She”—The Pillar of Fire. The French titles are Danse du feu and La Colonne de feu. It draws on H. Rider Haggard's 1887 novel She. Elisabeth Thuillier designed and directed a hand-colored version.
Themes
Background
Méliès was turning stage magic and popular novels into one-minute trick films for the Star Film catalogue at the end of the 1890s.
Making
Thuillier's workshop painted the release prints frame by frame. The colorless negative and the colored prints were both offered to exhibitors.
Technique
The woman appears out of the skillet by substitution, then is tinted so the skirts read as fire in the hand-colored prints.
Preservation
A hand-colored print survives, colored to Elisabeth Thuillier's design.
Notes
- Star Film numbered it 188.
- Jehanne d'Alcy and Méliès are the performers credited on the film's Wikidata entry.
- The American and British release title tied the dance directly to Haggard's She.
- The surviving hand-colored print is an example of Thuillier's coloring for Méliès.
Scenes
- The devil kindles the fire under the giant skillet.
- The woman rises in white and dances until the skirts become flame.
- She disappears in a burst of fire.
Influenced by
- H. Rider Haggard's novel She: A History of Adventure (1887)
