The Melomaniac

The Melomaniac (French: Le Mélomane) is a 1903 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès.

Le Mélomane
Directed byGeorges Méliès
StarringGeorges Méliès
Production
company
Release date
Summer 1903[1]
Running time
50 meters[2]
CountryFrance
LanguageSilent

Plot

A music master leads his band to a field where five telegraph lines are strung on utility poles. Hoisting up a giant treble clef, he turns the set of lines into a giant musical staff. He then uses copies of his own head to spell out the tune for "God Save the King," and his band joins in.

Production and release

Méliès himself plays the lead role of the music master. The superimposition effects in The Mélomaniac, allowing multiple Méliès heads to appear on the staff, were created by a multiple exposure technique requiring the same strip of film to be run through the camera seven times.[3] The rest of the film's special effects were created with substitution splices.[4]

The film was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 479–480 in its catalogues.[2] The film was registered for American copyright at the Library of Congress on 30 June 1903.[2]

The French film scholars Jacques Malthête and Laurent Mannoni believe The Mélomaniac to be Méliès's most famous trick film,[5] and a Méliès guide from the Centre national de la cinématographie judges that the film merits that position.[4] Film critic William B. Parrill rates it "innovative and creative".[6]

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References
  1. Malthête, Jacques; Mannoni, Laurent (2008), L'oeuvre de Georges Méliès, Paris: Éditions de La Martinière, p. 31, ISBN 9782732437323
  2. Malthête & Mannoni 2008, p. 345
  3. Frazer, John (1979), Artificially Arranged Scenes: The Films of Georges Méliès, Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., p. 113, ISBN 0816183686
  4. Essai de reconstitution du catalogue français de la Star-Film; suivi d'une analyse catalographique des films de Georges Méliès recensés en France, Bois d'Arcy: Service des archives du film du Centre national de la cinématographie, 1981, pp. 136–7, ISBN 2903053073, OCLC 10506429
  5. Malthête & Mannoni 2008, p. 147
  6. Parrill, William B. (2011), European Silent Films on Video: A Critical Guide, Jefferson, NC: McFarland, p. 474


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