It is widely held that Jules Verne's novels From the Earth to the Moon and Round the Moon as well as H. G. Wells First Men in the Moon served as inspiration for George Melies famous 1902 film A Trip to the Moon (in French: "Le Voyage dans la Lune"). Melies, in a rare interview, attributes the idea for his film to his fellow countryman Verne. Ironically, Thomas C. Renzi, in his book Jules Verne on Film, states "Melies imaginative concoction owes less to Verne than to H.G. Wells and his own inventiveness".
Most sources seem to simply state that the concept for the space-gun launching comes from Verne and that the stimulus for the follow-up adventures while on the moon is derived from Wells. In examining the film and comparing it with the novels, it appears that much of A Trip to the Moon's detailed imagery comes from both authors. This is in spite of the fact major plot-lines have been condensed in the film to almost the point of non-recognition. Therefore, the resultant scenes in the film do not necessarily follow the order and flow of events in the books. Of course, Melies adds his own vision into the film.
It is interesting to put some background to Melies and these indirect collaborators to gain further insight.
Verne was the oldest of the three men and wrote his novels in 1865 and 1869 respectively. In a sense, he laid the groundwork for the other two. H.G. Wells delivered First Men in the Moon much later in 1901. Wells was often referred to as the "English Jules Verne". However, both Wells and Verne were quick to firmly point out the differences in their approaches. Verne insisted on scientific extrapolation. In spite of his more formal scientific education, Wells did not. Instead he preferred to comment on society. Interestingly, both pointed to their fictional moon voyages to contrast their methods.
In turn, the phrase "Jules Verne outdone" would be attached to George Melies. Before switching to more famous careers, both Frenchmen worked making theatrical entertainment. Verne was occupied in this capacity before penning his "Voyages Extaordinaires". After becoming an author, he worked on a play with Adolphe d'Ennery that incorporated pieces of several of his novels. The play was called Voyage a travers l'impossbile, ran from 1879 to 1882 and it included portions that were taken out of From the Earth to the Moon.
A full theatrical adaptation of Verne's two moon novels had already been done in Paris entitled Le Voyage dans la Lune without Verne's collaboration. This Jacques Offenbach operetta with libretto by Albert Vanloo, E. Leterrier and Arnold Mortier was fairly popular. It lasted almost 2 years in the mid-1870s. John Frazer, in his book Artificially Arranged Scenes: The Films of George Melies gives a fascinating discussion on this topic. He points out that the Melies family lived in Paris a few blocks away from the Gaite-Lyrique where Offenbach's productions were held. Frazer notes the influence the play Le Voyage dans la Lune and the theater in general would have had on young Melies.
Melies made his own theatrical productions starting in 1888 and would continue to do so after switching his concentration to filmmaking. As he him self once stated, "My career in the cinema was really faithful to that in the Theatre Robert-Houdin; so much that one can hardly separate them". Among Melies' performances were such titles as L'enchanteur Alcofrisbas (1889), Les Farces du la Lune ou Les Mesaventures de Nostradamus (1891) and American Spritualist Mediums ou le Decapite Recalcitrant (1891). He would make the first two of these and other of his little skits into short movies. Additionally, Melies loosely adapted Voyage a travers l'impossbile (1903) and several Verne novels to film.
(Mr. Wells briefly was a theater critic for the Saturday Review in the late 1890s although he confessed a lack of affinity toward this medium.)
Melies' Robert-Houdin Theater was given its name by the same famous conjurer that gave Harry Houdini his stage-name. It is not possible to mention George Melies without thinking of Melies, the Magician. His theatrical performances were, for the most part, vehicles for Melies's magic. David Robinson in George Melies: Father of Film Fantasy even cites Melies' familiarity with a chapter in Albert A. Hopkin's Magic - Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions entitled "A Trip to the Moon". This "illustrated lecture" could too have been one of the many sources of inspiration added into the creative mix for the film. (Another chapter in this 1897 magic book was called "The Projection of Moving Pictures"!)
All three men had an artistic bent. Melies led the way here having studied art and having worked as a caricaturist / political cartoonist from 1889 to 1890. He also used his drawing talents to produce sketches that were later fleshed out on film. H. G. Wells was fond of including his doodle-like "picshuas" with his correspondences and made a couple of attempts at illustration ("Desert Daisy", his very first work of fiction as a youth, was self-illustrated.) As Arthur B. Evans points out, Verne and his publisher Jules Hetzel often collaborated very closely with Verne's illustrators. Verne would often send letters to his illustrators with free-hand sketches to indicate his ideas. (Wells had no such authority.)
Most importantly, it should be noted the impact that the illustration of Verne's books had as supplements to the texts. Original editions, for this reason, are collectible even to this day. Paul Hammond shows us definitely in his book Marvelous Melies that these illustrations influenced Melies in the set construction for 20(0),000 Leagues Under the Sea. It is hard to believe that Melies, in a similar manner, was not somewhat influenced in making A Trip to the Moon by Henri de Montaut - the illustrator of From the Earth to the Moon and Emile-Antoine Bayard - the illustrator of Round the Moon. We can speculate that Claude A. Shepperson, the Strand illustrator of First Men in the Moon also artistically influenced the film.
A summary of another discussion by Frazer gives us insight into Melies' own artistic style. He describes Melies' interaction with the art movement of the time as "broad ranging and eclectic". Melies style of drawing was a rapid cursive manner after Delacroix while his satirical cartoons were in line with those of the 19th century caricaturists Daumier, Caran d'Ache, Christophe and especially Andre Gill. His art often showed resemblance in the realm of the exotic and spectacular to Gustave Moreau and Gustave Dore. It has even been alleged that Melies studied painting under Moreau. Melies' cinematic art sense has often been likened to the works of Henri Rousseau.
Verne passed away in 1905 without any real participation in film production (although his son and sometime-collaborator Michael Verne went on to make a series called "Les Films Jules-Verne"). It is unknown as to whether Jules even viewed A Trip to the Moon. But Melies and Wells had varying degrees of involvement in the early days of cinema. Both had dealings with film pioneer Robert W. Paul in the 1890s. Melies bought his first camera from Paul. Paul had approached Wells around 1895 with a proposal to produce The Time Machine but the project was never realized.
In movies, Wells subsequently would find a strong interest stating in 1929 "I believe that if I had my life to live over again I might devote myself entirely to working for the cinema". He would ultimately get his chance to work in film. The 1936 classic Things to Come was made under his control.
Melies started his film career in 1896. His early attempts were, like the famed Louis Lumiere, of simple everyday occurences. Before the turn of the century, Melies had already produced a prototype short moon fantasy called La lune a un metre (it was based on Les Farces du la lune ou...). He went on to pioneer narrative cinema and invented the "fade-in", the "fade-out", the "overlap" and "stop-motion".
Finally, neither Verne nor Wells nor Melies created in a literary vacuum. Jules Verne was a great admirer of the fiction of Edgar Alan Poe and was often influenced by him. He alludes directly in his From the Earth to the Moon to the fiction of "Domingo Gonzales" (actually Bishop Francis Godwin), Cyrano de Bergerac, Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, The Great Moon Hoax attributed to Richard Adams Locke and of course Poe. All of these involved imaginary moon journeys. H. G. Wells took a cue in much of his writing from Johnathan Swift. In his novel he subtly references the astronomers Johannes Kepler and Camille Flammarion; both of whom incorporated their interests into works of fiction. (Verne too shows familiarity with Swift and Kepler in Round the Moon.) As a young man, Wells' influences included Baron Munchausen's adventure to the moon. Melies was well-read and aware of his own set of fantastic literature and imaginary moon accounts. For instance, he was also familiar with and later filmed Munchausen.
At this point, it is impossible to survey all of the works of fiction present at the end of the 19th century dealing with extraterrestrial voyages. Most of them dealt with wild means of journeying to the moon or other planets and were equally fantastic in other aspects. Suffice to say that in 1865, the year that Verne wrote From the Earth to the Moon, there were alone at least a half dozen fantastic space stories published. Through cross-pollination, A Trip to the Moon was affected by the literary as well as cinematic, scientific, theatrical and artistic thought and standards of its time.
In examining the film, it is important to understand the concept of a "tableau". The traditional theatrical sense of the word is a scene or group of scenes acted in one setting. Melies constructed his films using this approach and without ever moving the camera. His theatrical heritage, ever-present while exploring a new art form, inhibited him from doing otherwise. However, he often referred to a "tableau" as a unit of action within a single setting. For instance, an outline from a surviving Melies manuscript of A Trip to the Moon uses this breakdown. (To add to this confusion, Melies later made one of the first film "Special Editions" by adding several tableaux at the end.) For sake of discussion, we'll incorporate the first definition of tableau to analyze the film. We will also utilize the narrative that often accompanied the film's viewing as well as Melies' sketches used to work out ideas.
To begin, President Barbicane of the Baltimore Gun Club, the central character in the Verne stories, becomes "President Barbenfouillis" in the film. We may also see a bit of the absent-minded bumbling of Wells' Cavor here. Melies' Barbenfouillis caricature is one of the only characters that remotely carries over from either Verne or Wells. (Verne, on the other hand, would make further use of Barbicane plus the entire Gun Club in their exploits called The Purchase of the North Pole).
The hasty planning of the trip and the selection of Barbenfouillis' companions in A Trip to the Moon's first tableaux is an amalgamation of almost the first half of From the Earth to the Moon. The fanfare at the Verne gun club is mimicked by the to-do of the astronomers in the film. In the book, Barbicane has time to go over his plans in detail. He also develops and alters them along the way. These include the much-noted prophetic debate as to the selection of Florida or Texas as an ideal launch site. Melies condenses as he has Barbenfouillis quickly sketch out the path of the journey on a blackboard (a similar image is found in La lune a un metre). Large portions of the novel and especially the alteration of Barbicane's proposal of an unmanned "shot to the moon" by the book's character Michael Ardan for a manned "cylindro-conical projectile" are glossed over by the film-maker.
Even still, there are scenes derived from their written sources. In the film's opening, the astronomers proudly display their hand-held telescopes. With a little stretch of the imagination, it is possible to believe that Melies may have been doing a take-off here. After all, there is:
- the Verne-ish telescope specified by the Cambridge Observatory in From the Earth to the Moon (which incidentally was moved to the Paris Observatory in Offenbach's work).
- the telescopes Verne's characters use to view the moon in Round the Moon.
- the earthbound telescope alluded to by the Wells' characters Cavor and Bedford while in transit to the moon.
But under no circumstances can we think that either author would suddenly have the telescopes turn into chairs! This is alone the work of George Melies, the ex-magician.
The film-maker appears to cull one scene in particular from the first Verne novel. In the first tableaux, a member of the astronomers' committee suddenly "violently opposes" Barbenfouillis. Barbenfouillis then throws some papers and books at his detractor. This scene seems derived from Barbicane's altercation with "the unknown". The "unknown" is later revealed as Captain Nicholl who, along with Ardan, joins Barbicane on the expedition.
When the Astronomers lose their alchemist's robes and dress in the more modern garb brought in by their servants, it is as though this scene embodies Man's advancement from the dark ages into one ripe for space exploration. Barbicane, Nicoll, Ardan, Cavor and Bedford all undergo a metamorphous into Barbenfouillis and the five other astronomers chosen to accompany him. Melies' choice of these astronomers' names is instructive:
- "Barbenfouillis" which literally mean "whiskers in a tangle" in French appears to be a play-on-words of "Barbicane". Most likely it is. But it was a ready-made name for Melies. American Spiritualist Mediums ou le Decapite Recalcitrant had featured one "Professor Barbenfouillis". This incarnation of the character was an unstoppably boring lecturer (who continued on even with his head separated from him!). A good parody for Impy Barbicane.
- "Nostradamus" refers to the legendary prophesizer who predicted (among other things!) that Man would travel to the moon. It is also a reference back to a Melies play; namely, Les Farces du la Lune ou Les Mesaventures de Nostradamus.
- "Alcofrisbas" is an allusion to the writings of Francois Rabelais. His Pantagruel and Gargantua fantasies were penned under the anagram of Alcofrisbas Nasier. Alcofrisbas, the alchemist, was a favorite character of Melies. Not only does this reference look back to L'enchanteur Alcofrisbas but it looks forward to several subsequent Melies films in which Alcofrisbas is a character.
- "Parafaragamus" was another alchemist that Melies incorporates in later film.
- "Micromegas": Melies use of this name tells us that he was familiar with Voltaire. In Voltaire's story Micromegas: A Comic Romance, Being a Severe Satire upon the Philosophy, Ignorance, and Self-Conceit of Mankind, the central character is a miles-high giant from the Sirius star system. Micromegas first visits Saturn and then our own planet.
- "Omega" is, of course, the last letter in the Greek alphabet. Various character names take this form in the literature of the 19th century (e.g. Omegar, Omegare, Omegarus). All of these works deal with "the last man on earth" theme. The first of these was Jean Baptiste Francios Cousin de Grainville's The Last Man or Omegarus and Syderia: A Romance of Futurity which was written in 1805. Spinoffs of Grainville's work were produced by Auguste-Francois Creuze de Lesser (1831), Paulen Gagne (1858) and his wife Elise Gagne a year later. Perhaps the work that Melies may have most been familiar with would have been Flammarion's Omega: The Last Days of the World (French name: Fin du monde) which was popular enough in the 1890s to be translated into eleven languages. Lastly, there are six astronauts in Offenbach's cast of characters in the theatrical Le Voyage dans la lune; "Omega" is one of them.
Many of the names discussed thus far may not be that recognizable the average American a century later. Perhaps here is a good point to stress, however, the general awareness of these individuals had of one another and their predecessors. The best example to demonstrate this may be the career of one Gustave Dore. The aforementioned Dore illustrated Rabelais, Poe and Munchausen. He mentored the most famous of Verne artists Edouard Riou who in turn collaborated with the "moon" illustrator de Montaut. He designed costumes for Jacques Offenbach. He was photographed by Felix Nadar. Who was Nadar? Among other things, he was a famous French balloonist, adventurer, author and photographer. Most experts take him as the inspiration for Jules Verne's Michael Ardan. Around and around it goes. In Melies' time, these people were all in the forefront of the creative community and public consciousness.
To continue, the second tableau shows us workers preparing the space vehicle. These are the "smiths, mechanics, weighers, carpenters, upholsterers, etc." of the Melies narrative. Verne alludes to "stokers, iron-founders, lime-burners, miners, brick-makers and artisans" in Chapter 13 - Pixaxe and Trowel in From the Earth to the Moon. One quick film scene shows an astronomer slip into a tub of nitric acid symbolizing the lives that were paid in the construction of the gun according to the novel. Verne satirizes American over-industriousness. Melies adds the scene for comic relief.
We see in the third tableau the astronomers climbing a roof to see the molding of the gun, the signal for the casting to begin, and the flames and vapor which result. This is almost straight out of Chapter 14 of From the Earth to the Moon - The Fete of the Casting.
The next two tableaux follow Chapter 15 - Fire! rather closely. There are millions awaiting the launch in the book. They even go so far as to build a town from which to watch the event. Of course, Melies cuts this down a bit. He stations the observers on rooftops. In both instances, the adventurers go past the crowd and support devices for the vessel are removed. The space gun is fired toward the moon.
Melies stage-theater influence shows strongly here. Offenbach's play adaptation, for instance, had a dance number accompany the preceding foundry scene; Melies uses female "marines". And before being adapted by Melies, Offenbach's extravaganza featured a gun so huge that it rested on mountains and stretched across valleys, villages and rivers. Melies sketches are likewise more ambitious than what his film ultimately would show.
(Although from Verne, Wells gives implicit approval of the use of the space gun method of reaching the moon. In his novel War of the Worlds (1898), this is how the Martians reach the earth. There is also a space gun present at the end of Things to Come.)
Two more tableaux are short and purely Melies. An increasing image of the moon is shown as the shell disappears into space. The moon then attains a face (mimicking an image in La Lune a un metre) and the projectile hits it square in the eye! Still this was a better aim than the Verne space ship. His voyagers would miss the moon altogether and circle it instead.
To call these scenes "tableaux" may really be considered a misnomer. These shots are among the first attempts to move toward modern cinema. Without a precedent to guide him, Melies still used a stationery camera to track the movement. Instead of moving his camera, he moved his mock-up of the moon! Nonetheless, as he fades from one scene to the next, a groundbreaking effect not possible in the theater and only on film is obtained.
The film images in the middle of the film are predominantly derived from The First Men in the Moon. Wells even seems to be acknowledging the hand-off via a casual reference to Verne's "A Trip to the Moon". This is much as Verne had in turn referred to Poe and others. The title referred to by Wells is an alternate one used for the first Verne novel in both British and American translated editions. Coincidentally, it later becomes the title for the American version of the movie. However, as we shall see, the influence of Verne is still not negligible in this portion of the film. Melies, while borrowing from Wells, may have taken some cues from either author. At very least, the influence may be considered indirect due to Wells' familiarity with the French author's work.
The eighth tableau is a lengthy one. The astronomers crash down, examine the Moon's strange surface, look homeward at the Earth, endure a volcanic explosion, sleep, examine the Lunar sky in their dreams and encounter snow.
The Wells inspiration for some of these events is fairly obvious by examining various points of Chapter 6 - The Landing on the Moon and Chapter 7 - Sunrise on the Moon. We can almost hear in the film the projectile land with a Wellsian "over, clutch, bump, clutch, bump, over". He provides additional text describing the moon's craters, terrain, unique view of the stars and its "bluish snow".
Wells' most descriptive passages concerning the view of Mother Earth actually occur while his characters are approaching the moon in Chapter 5 - The Journey to the Moon. Verne gives a similar account while his own characters are space-bound (for instance in Round the Moon, Chapter 2 - The First Half Hour). The "Earth Light" sequence also appeared in the Paris theatrical Verne adaptation and was a highlight in Hopkin's magic book. Any or all of these sources could be Melies' ultimate stimulus.
Multiple possibilities also abound for Melies' inclusion of the lunar volcanic eruption. Wells and Verne both adapt then-current theories on the subject in their works. In the theatrical Le Voyage dans la Lune, it is an eruption that actually hurls the Earth-men homeward.
The derivation of the dream-sequence is not obvious. Throughout his novel, Wells makes many indirect references to Kepler's Somnium. Wells accomplishes this by having his characters repeatedly note the dreamlike nature of their adventures (Kepler's story was all a dream). Kepler is actually directly cited by Wells only once. But as Leon Stover notes in The First Men in the Moon: A Critical Text, readers at the time would have picked up on these allusions. We may assume that Melies had as well.
Further influence of Verne is not to be ignored. While nearing the moon, his space travelers in Round the Moon also view the surface and in fact also see snow. For instance, see Chapter 13 - Lunar Landscapes and Chapter 17 - Tycho in Round the Moon. Again, that this film imagery may be from Verne is reinforced by the fact that there was a snow-ballet in Offenbach's play.
Melies creates his own touches in this tableau. His display of the Great Bear constellation, Phoebes on the crescent (another effect from La lune a un metre), the god Saturn on his planet (shades of Micromegas!) and the girls holding up a star serve to move the film into pure fantasy. The influence of the theater on Melies continues to be apparent.
Continuing in the eighth tableau, the voyagers wake-up and escape the cold and snow by going below the moon's surface. In the Wells book, the descent happens due to the capture of Cavor and Bedford by the Selenites in Chapter 11 - The Mooncalf Pastures.
Tableau 9 of in the film version shows our heroes enter the interior of a grotto. They encounter strange plant life and especially giant mushrooms. One of the group opens an umbrella which via Melies trick photography becomes a giant mushroom as well. There are several possible passages which are sources for these images. According to Wells, Bedford and Cavor encounter giant swift growing plant-life in Chaper 8 - A Lunar Morning (which itself is probably a Wells tribute to the speculations of Camille Flammarion), 'huge fungoid' in Chapter 9 - Prospecting Begins and consciousness-altering mushrooms in Chapter 11 - The Mooncalf Pastures. Alone, Cavor finds man-size mushrooms in Chapter 24 - The Natural History of the Selenites. But it is the Selenites who carry the umbrellas in this chapter. Once more, Melies condenses a lot.
The background sets for these events, as noted by Carlos Clarens in An Illustrated History of Horror and Science Fiction Films, are in particular Rousseau-like. This similarity would possibly be even more evident if hand-colorized prints of A Trip to the Moon were still in circulation.
This tableau also marks the first time that the Selenites are shown to us. Most of Wells' book is about the dealings between the Earthlings and these creatures. But note that the Verne characters do speculate as to their existence in both "Moon" books. He postulates an advanced society under the moon's surface in Round the Moon. See Chapter 5 - The Colds of Space, Chapter 12 - A Bird's Eye View of the Lunar Mountains and Chapter 17 - Tycho.
Lacking a physical description from Verne, Melies portrayal of the Selenite appearance roughly parallels Wells description of the beings. Concept sketches by Melies indicate that their intended appearance was even more like the Wells Selenite model. Simple theatrical costumes of the time would permit only so much in the way of special effects.
Denis Gifford, in writing for The H.G. Wells Scrapbook, notes that Melies final design for these creatures comes closer to that of Shepperson's illustrations than to the actual description provided by Wells.
In more trick photography, Melies has the Selenites magically disappear in a puff of smoke when struck. But this is not far from the effect that Bedford has on them when he first hits one in Chapter 15 - The Giddy Bridge. We can see more of the progressive development of this scene by taking a look at another one of the Melies sketches; the Selenites are dismembered but not exploded.
This tableau ends with the Selenites chasing the Astronomers. In Wells' book like Melies' film, the characters attempt to avoid the Selenites, struggle, are captured and escape. (The image of the goading, poking Selenites is especially reminiscent of Wells). Wells has Cavor stay behind on the Moon and meet the Selenites more closely. Bedford returns to Earth.
We are introduced to the King of the Selenites in the 10th tableau. He is a derivation of the "Grand Lunar" on his throne in First Men in the Moon. Those passages most relevant to the film occur in Chapter 25 - The Grand Lunar. We can even suppose that the "Ecyclopaedic galaxy of the learned...left and right of me in readiness for the Grand Lunar..." are the source for the living stars surrounding the king. Note that traces of Verne are again found in allusions to an imagined "LUNATICO, King of the Selenites" in Round the Moon, Chapter 20 - Off the Pacific Coast. Note also that the Cavor-Grand Lunar dialogue concerning earthly society parallels that of Swift's Gulliver when meeting with the King of the Brobdingnag and the King of Laputa. This discussion is, of course, lost in A Trip to the Moon (Melies would adapt Gulliver's Travels as a separate film the same year).
Melies introduces a plot deviation when Barbenfouillis easily destroys the king. He continues on his own story line in the 11th and 12th tableaux while making use of previous stunts. The astronomers run away in the confusion. The Selenites again pursue them. We again see Selenites reduced to dust. The President is temporarily left behind (possibly in homage to Cavor's stranding on the moon). And then, in more pure Melies fantasy, the space shell is pulled off of the face of the Moon and falls back to Earth ala Verne.
The next two tableaux quickly show the shell falling and landing into the sea. In this action, Melies reverses the process in the moon blast. Once more he shows the movement of the space capsule by cutting from shot to shot. A small tank is used as a special effect to show the descent of the vessel through the water.
(In both the take-off and landing sequences, Melies' cutting techniques were typical of those used at the time. The closing action of preceding footage is duplicated from a new perspective to attempt continuity.)
From here, the effect of Verne and Wells seems to be reversed again. The 15th and 16th tableaux concern the return to Earth. We see the shell sink in the ocean, rise again and be rescued by a ship. A celebration follows. These events are Verne-inspired from Round the Moon. They happen in Chapter 23 - The Club Men Go a Fishing and Chapter 24 - Farewell to the Baltimore Gun Club. We can marginally see a similarity in the film's final stages with Wells' novel. In Chapter 21 - Mr. Bedford at Littlestone, Bedford also lands at sea.
In A Trip to the Moon, we see the talents of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells act as a funnel into the imagination of Monsieur Georges Melies. Regardless of the different methods of these authors, George Melies chose to meld their work into this charming film. On reflection, his selection does not seem that terrible. First Men in the Moon has often been considered the most whimsical and fanciful of Wells' scientific romances. Wells mainly confined his philosophizing to Cavor's solo escapades. Melies combined First Men in the Moon well with Verne's two adventures. By aiming for entertainment, Melies removed from A Trip to the Moon any heavy-handed scientific accuracy by Verne or social commentary by Wells.
We can get the impression that select quotes from the three novels could almost serve as a substitute narration. Those familiar with these sources could almost expect Wells and Verne to be mentioned as the credits roll. Of course, films of the era did not have such credits. Even contributing actors went unheralded to the general public. Lest they go unnoticed here, we will name some of the participants. Bleunette Bernon was featured as the "Man" in the Moon. Others in the cast included Victor Andre, Delpierre, Farjaux, Kelm and Brunnet. Acrobats from the nearby Folies-Bergere were cast as the kinetic Selenites. Ballet girls from the Chatelet supplied faces to the stars in the sky. The camera work was provided by Lucien Tainguy. George Melies, in addition to directing, producing, designing the sets and writing the film, played its main character Barbenfouillis.
That there were multiple interlocking influences on A Trip to the Moon is beyond doubt. That From the Earth to the Moon, First Men in the Moon and Round the Moon directly inspired Melies the most seems obvious. The overwhelming evidence of careful analysis reveals this. A quote from How to Read a Film by James Monaco possibly best gives a closing thought: "The narrative potential of film is so marked that it has developed its strongest bond not with painting, not even with drama, but with the novel."
Unpublished work Copyright 2000 Steven A. Joyce
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