Ulysses and the Giant Polyphemus
About Ulysses and the Giant Polyphemus
Georges Méliès plays Odysseus in a short that joins two separate stretches of the Odyssey. One is Calypso’s island, Ogygia. The other is the cave of the Cyclops Polyphemus near Mount Etna. The French title is L’Île de Calypso. English ads sometimes used The Mysterious Island, with the subtitle Ulysse et le géant Polyphème.
Cast & crew
More about Ulysses and the Giant Polyphemus
Star Film numbered it 750–752. Wikipedia times it at 4 minutes. The tricks use stage machinery, multiple exposures, substitution splices, and dissolves. Polyphemus’s eye is worked with two strings. A Commons file uses the French title.
Themes
Making
Méliès built the giant out of stage machinery and a puppet eye, then cut Odysseus’s escape with substitution splices.
Look
The cave and the island are stage sets, doubled and dissolved rather than shot on location.
Preservation
A copy is on Wikimedia Commons under the French title.
Notes
- Calypso’s island and the Cyclops’s cave are not the same place in Homer. The film puts them together.
- Méliès is Odysseus, not the giant.
- The British and American titles do not match the French one.
- The giant’s eye is a puppet, pulled on strings.
Scenes
- The setting shifts from Calypso’s island to the Cyclops’s cave.
- The giant’s eye moves on two strings.
Influenced by
- Homer’s Odyssey
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (L'Île de Calypso (1905).webm)
