duVoyage - Fondation Groupama Gan pour le Cinéma

offices. Films were melted down in order to extract silver, and ironically, to be converted into celluloid. In 1920,
Méliès gave his last performance at the Robert-Houdin theatre. The theatre was let afterwards, first by theatre
companies, then became a cinema until 1923, after which the building was demolished as part of works on
boulevard Haussmann. Méliès had run this mythical place for 35 years. The film copies preserved in the theatre
were sold by the kilogram to a reseller specialised in B films for amateurs.
1923 was a terrible year for Méliès. He was forced to sell his Montreuil property. In a moment of anger, Méliès
burned his whole stock of negatives in the garden of Montreuil.
In 1925, Méliès married Jehanne d’Alcy. She too had lived through difficult times, but had managed to buy a small
shop at Montparnasse station. Together they ran the small kiosk, selling sweets and toys to passing travellers.
Late recognition
René Clair and Paul Gilson played a major role in highligthing Méliès role in cinema and his work: they published
an article on him in the Revue du Cinéma in 1929, and launched the idea of holding a gala retrospective
of his work in the same year.
After a first viewing in Studio 28, a studio specialising in the avant-garde, the Méliès Gala was held in the
Pleyel Hall in Paris on 16 th December 1929. The few films by Méliès were accompanied by Forfeiture (1915) by
Cecil B. De Mille. In parallel, Méliès donated the automated machinery from the Robert-Houdin to the Arts et
Métiers Museum in Paris, which unfortunately later resold or destroyed the priceless 19 th century theatrical machines.
In 1932, Méliès was able to leave Montparnasse station. A mutual aid association created by former cinema artists
had just acquired offices near Orly airport. Méliès, his wife and his grand-daughter Madeleine, were able
to move into a three-room apartment, where he lived until his death. He died three months after being diagnosed
with cancer, on 21 January 1938 at the Léopold Bellan hospital in Paris, and was buried at the Père-Lachaise
cemetery on 25 January. His funeral was attended by René Clair, Henri Chomette, Nadia Sibirskaia,
Ferdinand Zecca, Alberto Cavalcanti and Louis Aubert, among others. On his gravestone: “Méliès, creator of
the cinematographic show, 1861-1938.”
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1896-1913:
Georges Méliès
and the cinema industry
After 1895, the pre-cinema era - symbolised by the Kinescope that allowed individuals
to see moving pictures through a viewing slot – was definitively over.
The Lumière brothers’ projector, officially presented to the public on 28 December
1895, now enabled on-screen projections to an audience.
1895-1900:
Cinema invents
During this period, neither artists nor the viewing public were what cinema was all about.
The era was essentially characterised by invention.
The films proposed were short (around one-minute long) and the subject matter was unimportant:
a train entering a station would do... Artists were not behind the camera : an operator
filmed subject matter that was relatively poor and lacked narrative structure. What
people wanted to see were moving pictures.
Films were sold (the idea of film rental would come later), mainly to fairgrounds, which incorporated
them into existing shows. Projection conditions were extremely poor (damaged
film, bad lighting...). The public wanted to see the technical invention that was just one of
the attractions on show at the fair (magic shows, popular music, clowns, monsters, etc...).
And when in April 1896, Georges Méliès decided to project films in his own theatre, he broke
with tradition, turning the Robert-Houdin theatre into one of the first cinemas. He had
changed the programme radically: theatre performances were dedicated exclusively to cinematography,
magic performances took place in the morning only, on Sundays and Thursdays.
The change did not last long, however: after 8-10 weeks, the public deserted him.
Georges Méliès had to revert back to a more traditional theatre schedule, and he continued
to sell to fairgrounds, the main distribution channel for his films.
The Universal Exhibition of 1900:
The Lumière brothers project onto a giant screen
In 1900, the Universal Exhibition classed cinema as a technique: it was part of class III – Instruments
and general literature, science and arts – and within class III it was categorised
as a subset of Photography. It was seen as deriving from photography and as a reproduction
technique, similar to printing.
Only two people linked to cinema were members of the committee for this class: Jules-
Etienne Marey and Louis Lumière. Méliès was not officially present at the Exhibition. Each
country used cinematographic projection to present its contribution and work. Within this
context, the cinema was not considered pure entertainment: it was used to support learned
presentations and demonstrations. Paradoxically, if cinema had yet to find its place, there
was a willingness on the part of the General Commissariat of the Universal Exhibition to
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