It isn’t often I do a DVD review, but then, when what I’m reviewing is a bunch of stuff from the beginning of the 20th century, I guess you have to make do. I finally sat down and watched all of Méliès the Magician a DVD that has been resting on my television for quite some time now.
I’d seen a few of his fantasmagorical films over the years, but I wanted to actually own a collection of his stuff, he is probably my second favorite silent film person, after Buster Keaton. This particular DVD has a 2 hour 10 minute documentary on the man, which is really long. The director, Jacques Mény, did an excellent job outlining Méliès the man by describing the environment and small actions that shaped him. It did not deal with his personal life, or only in passing, as it affected his filmmaking. This struck me as respectful and quite at odds with American biographical documentaries, which seem to scrounge up any and all dirt possible.
At first the style and shape of the film seems primitive or cheap, but it grows on you and becomes endearing. Mény made the documentary take us back to pre-war Paris. It manages to make one feel reminiscent for turn of the century France, even if you weren’t alive then.
After the doc, there is Méliès Magic Show, which is arranged just like it would have been in the early 1900s. Méliès’s granddaughter acts as the barker, explaining the action in the films, and Eric Le Guen, an improvisational pianist, provides the musical accompaniment. There are 15 of Méliès’s films, and the show lasts about 55 minutes. Included are the classics: Trip to the Moon, One Man Band, The Music Lover, and The Man with the Rubber Head; and plenty of others as well.
If watching the films as they would have been seen in the 1900s isn’t your thing, you can select each film individually through the chapter menu. The DVD is worth every penny, providing you like Méliès.