Film: Design & Architecture

Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902)

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A Trip to the Moon is a silent film and the creation of French illusionist and filmmaker ‪Georges Méliès‬, who I wouldn’t have known about if I hadn’t seen Martin Scorsese’s 2011 film Hugo. While watching Scorsese’s film, I had no idea that Ben Kingsley’s character was an accurate historical depiction of France’s cinema legend ‪Georges Méliès‬ and that most of the antique film frames used in Hugo were excerpts from ‪Méliès‬’ surviving and reconstructed films. Those images were so wonderful that I couldn’t resist researching this wonderful legend and his films.

For the next four paragraphs, I will be giving you the story of how this once-lost film was reconstructed. The technical details fascinate me. If you want to know more about ‪Georges Méliès‬, I would suggest viewing Scorsese’s film Hugo and then learn more by reading about Méliès here.