The spectacle of the moon conquest: how visual culture shaped Méliès’ Le voyage dans la Lune and its anti-imperialist satire

ABSTRACT

It is well-established that Jules Verne’s De la Terre à la Lune and H. G. Wells’ The First Men in the Moon inspired Georges Méliès’ Le voyage dans la Lune. At the same time, though, the film’s written sources cannot fully account for its iconographic, aesthetic, and semantic stratification. For this reason, the survey will include a set of still neglected or underestimated references of this pioneering work in motion picture art, especially its visual antecedents. More precisely, elaborating on Tom Gunning and Andre Gaudreault’s notion of ‘cinema of attractions’, the central argument is that visual culture and pictorial tradition, together with non-traditional theatre paradigms, concurred to determine Méliès’ unique cinematic spectacle at least as much as its literary models. These considerations are equally valid for the satirical content of the film. In fact, written, visual, and spectacular sources are combined in what David Sandner describes as Méliès’ ‘imperial farce’ which critically engaged with the nineteenth-century French colonial aspirations and their ideological and cultural background. Based on these assumptions, this paper aims to explore the thematic and iconographic premises of Méliès’ Le voyage dans la Lune, relating them with nineteenth-century imperial culture, as well as to its critical revision within post-colonial studies. Lastly, the analysis is focused on the protagonists’ double role, that of the scientist-explorer since, as I will demonstrate, their parodical depiction retains a primary role in structuring the film’s anti-imperialist satire.

KEYWORDS:

• Georges Méliès
• Le voyage dans la lune
• cinema of attraction[s]
• anti-imperialist satire
• visual culture
• intermediality

Introduction

One of the most famous early films ever produced, Georges Méliès' Le voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon, 1902) remains undoubtedly impressed on the collective imagination.¹ Almost every cinephile (and even the casual viewer) is familiar with the iconic lunar landing represented as a bullet-shaped rocket stuck in the eye of an anthropomorphised moon face. Although it lasts only approximately 10 minutes (the exact playing time depends on the print and the speed with which it is reproduced), its impact on visual and popular culture is irrefutable. The echoes of this signature film range from Segundo de Chomón’s almost contemporary remake entitled Excursion dans la Lune (Excursion to the Moon, 1908), Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí’s Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog, 1929), and Michael Anderson’s Around the World in 80 Days (1956) to Martin Scorsese’s Hugo (2011). Moreover, its influences go well beyond cinema, as a quick glance at the Smashing Pumpkins’ video clip of the song Tonight, Tonight, or episodes of popular animated series such as Futurama and The Simpsons demonstrates. Beyond popular culture, Méliès’ masterpiece is no less relevant in film criticism and debate. No film history compendium with the ambition to be comprehensive can avoid at least a brief mention of what is generally considered a pioneering work in the development of the science fiction genre and a milestone in the overall history of cinema.

Whilst Le voyage dans la Lune is unquestionably a fundamental and unique work in motion picture art, it is also the result of an ensemble of variegated influences. It has been well-established that two precursors of science fiction literature inspired a large portion of the storytelling and events staged in this on-screen depiction of space exploration: Jules Verne’s De la Terre à la Lune, trajet direct en 97 heures 20 minutes (1865) and H. G. Wells’ The First Men in the Moon (1901). Amongst the first who recognised this debt, Georges Sadoul, in his Histoire générale du cinéma, emphasises the novel’s essential impact on the film’s section located on Earth and the latter’s influence on the ‘lunar episodes’ (‘épisodes lunaires’ [1947, 221]). Nonetheless, it would be reductive to restrict the film’s references to these written models. The prime reason is that Méliès’ free referencing style provides for the combination of very different materials in his unique film spectacle in order to amuse his audience. In addition, it is a question of inter-medial cross-influences. The illustrated editions of Verne’s Voyages extraordinaires (which included De la Terre à la Lune) printed by the French publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel between 1863–1905, were extraordinarily successful, captivating a wide readership for the nascent science fiction genre and inaugurating a trend described by Ian Christie as the ‘Verne Effect’ (2011, 67). Therefore, it is not difficult to see how the almost immediate canonisation of De la Terre à la Lune was at the origin of a complex web of iconographic and thematic influences inspiring a series of more or less derivative works. Jacques Offenbach’s Le voyage dans la Lune (1874), one of most important direct antecedents to the mise-en-scène of Méliès’ Le voyage dans la Lune, was one of these. As a consequence, it is reasonable to suggest that the film echoes these derivative works as much as the original source. However, as I will demonstrate, its figurative sources extend to a considerably broader ensemble that includes exemplars from the visual arts and, more generally, from the popular visual culture of the time.

On the other hand, the value of Méliès’ Le voyage dans la Lune far exceeds the mere reworking of a canonised literary masterpiece and the artworks drawing upon its narrative and visual apparatus. Its importance and uniqueness lie equally in the way it elaborates on its sources and dwells upon well-established values defining nineteenth-century French bourgeois society. This is especially true when it comes to how the film deals with what Edward W. Said defines as ‘a structure of attitude and reference’ (1994, 65), denoting the European imperial culture that supported the ‘colonialist practice and imperialist ideology’ (19).

According to Said, the Western elites’ claims for control and domination over non-European populations were not limited to their military agenda but were also largely supported by the cultural production of the time. More specifically, with regard to French expansionistic enterprises and their ideological premises, he demonstrated how:

The process of imperialism occurred beyond the level of economic law and political decisions and – by predisposition, by the authority of recognisable cultural formation, by continuing consolidation within education, literature, and the visual and musical arts – were manifested in another very significant level, that of national culture.

(13)

Although Said mainly approaches the interaction between modern European culture and imperialist ideology with a focus on literary theory and criticism, he also notices the impact it had on other cultural forms, including travel writing, fiction, painting, and popular culture in general. In this context, an ideological vision is similarly validated whilst perpetuating the ‘rhetoric of la mission civilisatrice’ (1994, 137). Moreover, the Western countries’ imperialist attitude equally nourished a diffused ‘colonial voyeurism’ (Jennings 2005, 702) that Eric T. Jennings sees as critical in the perception of overseas territories. Therefore, the image given by Western cultural forms was often barely more than a ‘colonial construct and fantasy, a fiction expressed through colonial desire and exoticism’ (705).

The Cinématographe, as part of turn-of-the-century popular entertainment and culture, is no exception. More precisely, we can suggest that the intrinsic voyeurism and ‘exhibitionistic impulse’ (Gunning 1990, 56) that, according to Tom Gunning, characterised the ‘cinema of attractions’ (56) before its narrativisation, also influenced the way French colonies were represented in moving pictures. This assumption can be verified, for instance, if we consider a number of Lumière actualities that capture faraway lands and civilisations. As Katherine Groo observes whilst analysing the 1897 Village Ashanti series: ‘drawn from human expositions and expeditions to non-Western corners of the globe, these films also manifest the colonial impulses that underpin the Lumière project’ (2013, 52). Whilst displaying exotic places and costumes, films such as these engaged the early spectators’ fantasies with a fictionalised colonial dreamscape and repertoire of wonders behind which there lies an imperialist gaze. In these terms, the depiction of French colonies on the screen not only responded to the dominating European imperialist mythology but also served the cinema of attraction. In fact, they represented an exciting spectacle realised with the latest optical device capable of stimulating the viewers’ ‘visual curiosity’ (Gunning 1990, 58).

Méliès’ fictional films participated in the same entertaining and cultural system to which Lumière actualities belonged. In fact, according to Gunning, in spite of ‘the realistic illusionism’ (1990, 57) characterising these latter and the ‘magical illusionism’ (57) distinguishing the former, they shared the same understanding of the film medium as a ‘way of presenting a series of views to the audience, fascinating because of their illusionary power’ (57). Nonetheless, if exotic views such as the Village Ashanti series reveal an underlying commonality with the contemporary imperialist attitude, Méliès’ fictional films, including Le voyage dans la Lune, dealt with the same cultural paradigm concurrently absorbing and challenging it.

A similar interpretation can be applied to the way Le voyage dans la Lune related to the proto-sci-fi imagery it dwelt upon. As John Rieder points out, ‘colonialism is a significant historical context for early science fiction’ (2012, 2). This is because the emergence of the genre essentially matches with the European powers’ maximum imperialist efforts, inspiring a collection of ‘utopian and satirical representations of encounters between European travelers and non-Europeans’ (2). Méliès’ Le voyage dans la Lune and its written sources – Verne’s De la Terre à la Lune and Wells’ The First Men in the Moon - are amongst them; nonetheless, a critical approach may still lie behind these space adventures. Indeed, as Sandner (1998) observes:

By transferring the imperial project from its historical context to the more elastic form of fantastic, all three use science fiction to express anxiety with the rapid progress of science and so transform the imperial romance into what might be called the imperial satire.

(2)

Concurrently, though, according to Sandner, the reference to Verne’s and Wells’ novels can be interpreted as a direct consequence of what Gaudreault defines as ‘trickality’ (1987, 111). Seen in this light, Méliès’ selection of literary elements seems to be primarily aimed at satisfying the spectacular needs and canons distinguishing the cinema of attractions. In other words, they are chosen based on their capacity to provide inspiration for his magic tricks.

Sandner’s notion of imperial satire and its application to Le voyage dans la Lune and its literary models can be extended to the visual antecedents of its staging and meaning. It is, therefore, possible to suggest that visual culture and pictorial tradition provided essential background to the film’s visual display and signification since they are, at least, as influential as its written sources. Moreover, Méliès’ re-use of pre-existing visual elements has implications beyond the aesthetic and iconographic levels, also defining his stratified cinematic spectacle and the referencing strategy behind it. Two exemplary cases are offered by the Vernian cannon and projectile rocket explored further in the following paragraphs. The same can be affirmed for the way Méliès’ trickality shapes the content together with the form, being equally crucial to the way Le voyage dans la Lune approaches nineteenth-century European imperial culture and imperialist attitude.

In order to demonstrate this hypothesis, the analysis focuses on the dual role acquired by the film’s protagonists, the scientist-magician and the explorer. In fact, they are caricatures of the dominant cultural attitudes behind the heroes of the imperial romance: respectively, Western positivistic and imperialistic ideology. Exploring more in detail the genesis, sources, and semantic implications of Le voyage dans la Lune, it is thus possible to offer a new interpretation that extends Sandner’s considerations concerning this Méliès’ work to its visual references. Finally, in terms of generic conventions, this paper seeks to explore the genesis of recurring sci-fi tropes, including, but not limited to, the caricatures of the scientist or the explorer, pertaining to the filmmaker’s repertoire.

A paradoxical man of science: a comparative analysis

At the dawn of the twentieth century, when Le voyage dans la Lune was realised, French scientific discoveries and geographical expansionism nourished the general endorsement of imperialist values that contributed to what Raoul Girardet defines as the history of ‘l’idée coloniale’ (‘the colonial idea’ [1972, 12]). Different influential French eighteenth-century cultural figures, such as Jules Duval, Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, and Lucien Anatole Prévost-Paradol, contributed to the affirmation of such a colonial idea. Their defence of the French imperialist project was primarily based on three arguments: the supposed ‘civilizing function’ of French colonialism² (Duval 1877, 44), the exploitation of still untapped natural resources and settlement in new territories (Duval and Malte-Brun 1864, VI), and the affirmation of French geopolitical influence in Africa against the British Crown (Prévost-Paradol 1868, 419). Concurrently, according to Said, the same ideological vision behind the ‘imperial rule’ (Said 1994, 136) was reinforced and spread by the ‘imperial motifs woven into the structures of popular culture, fiction and the rhetoric of history, philosophy and geography’ (137–38), resulting, amongst other, in the late nineteenth-century fascination for adventure fiction at the bases of travel writing and imperial romance.

The farcical conquest of the moon pictured in Le voyage dans la Lune engaged precisely with such imagery and the colonial fantasies behind it, although mocking some of the main positions progressively affirmed in public opinion and cultural elites. In particular, the dual role assumed by the film’s protagonists, that of the scientist-magician and the explorer, can be seen as an ironic reworking of prototypic colonialist attitudes toward non-European territories: the hegemonic claim over non-Western peripheries and the common belief of Western cultural superiority over non-European civilisations directly linked with it. It is noteworthy that, as Rieder argues, science fiction equally originated in Western geographical expansionism. In this perspective, we may interpret Verne’s, Wells’ and Méliès’ impossible journeys as projections not only of the ‘otherworldliness of the colonies’ (6) aimed to entertain bourgeois readers but also of the ‘fantasy of appropriation’ (6) emerging from Europeans’ commercial interests and colonial aspirations over non-European territories. In fact, as Rieder explains:

The social consequences of colonialism, including the fantastic appropriation and rationalisation of the unevenly distributed of colonial wealth in the homeland and in the colonies, the racist ideologies that enabled colonialist exploitation, and the radical cultural difference on the home culture.

(2012, 20–21)

At the same time, he emphasises how the ‘pseudonarrative of progress’ (29) inspiring sci-fi visions of the future was often connected with the ‘ideologies of colonialism that code the non-European world in all its diversity, not simply as the Other, but in various ways as the veritable embodiment of the past’ (2012, 29–30). Here, imperialist rhetoric and positivist principles were mirrored in the adventurous journeys and futuristic technology at the bases of this generic repertoire. However, sometimes doubts and fears also emerged within proto-sci-fi representations. Verne’s De la Terre à la Lune and Méliès’ Le Voyage dans la lune are amongst these latter.

In order to explore how Méliès approaches the dominant imperialist imagery and sci-fi iconography, it is thus opportune to compare the initial chapters of De la Terre à la Lune and the Verne-inspired first section of Le voyage dans la Lune. The opening of De la Terre à la Lune is set in Baltimore, USA, right after the ‘War of Rebellion’ (Verne 2019, 4). A ‘ruinous peace’ (4) is worrying a group of artillery experts who form the Gun Club, an association committed to the creation of more and more lethal (and bigger) guns. As one disconsolate member admits, in a ‘critical period in the progress of the science of artillery’ (4), American military operations are mostly left behind. Something has to be done, but what? Barbicane, the president of the association, calls for a special meeting at the Gun Club headquarters to discuss a possible remedy.

If the protagonists’ farcical military attitude immediately stands out from the opening dialogue, the description of the building where they congregate, and Barbicane’s answer to the current lack of military operations, reinforce the humorous and paradoxical tone. According to Verne’s description, in a great hall decorated with ‘Models of cannon, bronze castings, sights covered with dents’ (2019, 8) and similar gun-like ornaments, the leader of the Gun Club unveils his reckless project. He yearns for the conquest of the moon and, given the nature of the organisation he presides over, nothing but a gigantic firearm and projectile could provide the means for such an endeavour. More precisely, he proposes a 20,000-pound aluminium cannonball, measuring 108 inches in diameter and 12 inches thick, to be propelled from a cast-iron cannon of 900 feet, weighing approximately 68,000 tons and loaded with 400,000 pounds of fulminating cotton. Subsequently, the shape of the vessel changes from a sphere to a cylinder-cone when Michel Arden volunteers to be delivered inside it. Despite this minor modification, Barbicane’s eccentric proposal is realised, but only after consultation with the Observatory at Cambridge.

Evidently, the imaginative plans for the lunar mission and the disclosure of its technical issues are expedients for reflecting ironically on the connections between scientific progress and American militarism. Hence, science fiction serves as social satire. The same can be affirmed for the caricatural depiction of the megalomaniac protagonist and his companions. Barbicane is an audacious ‘Northern Colonist’ (Verne 2019, 8) and the former ‘Director of Artillery’ (8). His fanatic obsession with gunnery and inclination to belligerence makes him something of a caricature, resulting in a stereotypification of ‘the Yankees’ (1) exaggerated to the point of hyperbole. In this manner, not only is a comic effect created, but the narrative also transcends into science fiction when Barbicane’s plans for interplanetary colonisation are implemented. Moreover, the ironical commentary is further amplified by the arrival of Michel Arden, the French adventurer who enthusiastically undertakes the space mission, completely disregarding any potential technical or ethical issues.

According to Martin (1990, 21), it is precisely Michel Arden who embodies Verne’s criticism of French geographical expansionism and Napoleon III’s military expeditions, namely the unfortunate Expédition du Mexique. In 1861, the Second French Empire launched an invasion of Mexico aimed at ushering in a conniving government which would lead to the installation of the allied Austrian emperor, Maximilian von Habsburg. However, in 1863 French military forces left Mexican territory after a strength-sapping guerrilla war, and Maximilian von Hapsburg was executed in 1867 (Cunningham 2001).

As with De la Terre à la Lune, the lunar expedition members are depicted with an ironical tone in Le voyage dans la Lune (see Figure 1). Nonetheless, Méliès’ humour is the outcome of totally different medial conventions and means, which Gaudreault defines as those of ‘kine-attractography’ (Gaudreault 2011, 48). Its ascendency over the filmic configuration and contents is visible from the first entrance of the lead characters, which are presented as scientist-magicians, thereby representing one of many attractions related to Méliès’ distinctive trickality. In the opening scene, a group of bizarre scholars arrive in an orderly fashion in a stone hall. Behind them, a colossal telescope reveals their probable occupation: astronomy. In fact, those present are waiting for the prominent Professor Barbenfouillis (performed by Méliès), who is about to divulge an innovative technology whose purpose is nothing less than to reach the moon. His basic explanation takes a couple of minutes. He sketches two circles (the earth and its satellite) and a white line on the blackboard, briefly illustrating his theory. Initially, the reaction appears to be enthusiastic, but suddenly the mood changes, and a general restlessness arises. One of his listeners even stands up in the front row and begins a heated argument. The professor, in response, vehemently throws random papers at him. The dissent is soon quelled, and the meeting proceeds without further incident. Five volunteers are chosen, who change into more comfortable travelling outfits. (Remarkably, the fitting occurs in the middle of the room and is realised with a stop-motion substitution.) As soon as the meeting is over, they head to the ‘Foundries’ (Solomon 2011a, 227), in which a Verne-inspired projectile rocket is under construction and where, eventually, they embark on their journey to the earth’s satellite.

Figure 1. ‘The scientific congress at the Astronomic Club’ in Le voyage dans la Lune by Georges Méliès (1902).

A comparison between Barbenfouillis and Barbicane’s explanations of, and preparations for, their space journey shows a striking difference in character design and narrative strategies. Firstly, whilst the details of the mission are investigated accurately in chapters VII, VIII and IX of the De la Terre à la Lune, in Le voyage dans la Lune, their analysis and exposition are reduced to a few doodles on a blackboard and a childish squabble. These differences instantly indicate something of Verne’s and Méliès’ approaches to science and science fiction. The former’s meticulous description demonstrates scientific pretension and a certain fascination with technical progress and new discoveries, even if his visionary aerospace technology also mocks them. In fact, as Sandner argues, Verne professes ‘an ardent astonishment at the celebration of the progress of Western civilization as well as an abhorrence’ (1998, 9). Méliès, instead, appears less captivated by facts and numbers. Rather, in the filmic re-elaboration, the scientific and sci-fi elements become the ulterior bizarre and fascinating ingredients of his cinematic spectacle. At the same time, whilst somehow critically engaging with the idea of progress, Verne’s and Méliès’ works also call into question the function of civilisation flatteringly intrinsic in the imperialist ideologic system, albeit once again with a substantial distinction between them. As Sandner specifies, Verne’s ‘satire of the military’s utilisation of science for the imperial project’ (24) somehow paradoxically coexists with a celebration of science in the detailed description of Barbicane’s planes for the moon conquest. By contrast, Méliès ‘the science’ (1998: 24) material, selecting the elements of Verne’s novel that best fit into his cinematographic spectacle. Despite his apparently diverting tone, though, the way the filmmaker re-used pre-existing motifs to compose his ‘imperial farce’ (24) does not exclude the original satiric value and even surpasses it.

The same referencing strategy can be extended well beyond Verne’s narrative involving all its antecedents ranging from the book’s visual apparatus to Méliès’ theatrical repertoire and its pictorial sources. This assumption is immediately corroborated by further scrutiny of the depictions of the Astronomic Club members and its leader. Barbenfouillis has almost nothing in common with Barbicane, except perhaps for the vague similarity of their names; the same substantial difference can be detected in the other lead characters’ representations. Far from being warmongers or former artillerymen, the professor and his colleagues are, in fact, portrayed as peculiar old men of science with long white hair and beards and litigious tempers. Even more strangely, they are dressed up as wizards or eccentric scholars of a bygone era.

Firstly, it is possible to distinguish a white pleated ruff that confers upon them both an outdated comic-theatre quality and a caricatural academic style. This item is a distinctive trait of the costume of Pierrot. Born in la commedia dell’arte - Italian improvised theatre - (Storey 1978, 4), it underwent a great change in nineteenth-century French theatre. In particular, at the beginning of the century, the character was made famous by Jean-Gaspard Deburau’s pantomimes at the Théâtre des Funambules, thanks to whom the ‘moonstruck Pierrots’ (94) acquired a more complex and reflexive quality and ‘gradually found their way into Romantic, Decadent and Symbolist literature’ (94). Interestingly, this character also recurs in various Méliès films, including Le cauchemar (The Nightmare, 1896) (see Figure 2) and Au clair de la Lune ou Pierrot Malheureux (A Moonlight Serenade; or, The Miser Punished, 1904). At the same time, though, the circular collar may also be reminiscent of seventeenth-century physicians pictured in certain Flemish paintings, such as Rembrandt’s famous The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp (1632). (Notably, in that period, it was also ‘worn all over Europe’ [Wilcox 1992, 296]). In spite of the differences with the rest of the stage costume or Flemish iconography, this item seems to emphasise the parodic nature of the film scientists whilst lending them an outmoded charm. This interpretation is corroborated respectively by Barbenfouillis’ ridiculous and totally inappropriate presentation to his academic audience and by the ancient-looking location and overall old-fashioned atmosphere.

Figure 2. Pierrot and the anthropomorphised moon face in Le cauchemar by Georges Méliès (1896).

Furthermore, all the film’s characters are dressed in wizard-like gowns, quite dissimilar from the Dutch physicians’ outfits or Pierrot’s costumes. Moreover, although some of the Astronomic Club members are clothed in monochrome dark robes (one on the top left, some in the middle and three in the front row), many of them wear lighter-coloured or patterned material (including Barbenfouillis). Lastly and most evidently, several scientists don pointed sorcerer-style hats. Both these clothing items, especially the latter, recall another character recurrent in Méliès’ stage and film production: the magician. This analogy is evident, for example, if we compare the outfits of the astronomers and that of the wizard protagonist of Le magicien (The Magician, Georges Méliès, 1898). Interestingly, not only do the magician and Pierrot alternate in the filmic scenes at the epicentre of a daring succession of illusionistic tricks, but they also both wear the previously mentioned ruff, confirming its comic value.

Finally, it is also essential to note that the astronomer himself is not a stand-alone type but a returning figure in Méliès’ theatre and filmography (before and after 1902). The character’s first appearance can be dated back to 1891 with Les Farces de la Lune ou les Mésaventures de Nostradamus, a magic show he performed in the role of Nostradamus (the same character also appeared in Barbenfouillis’ group heading for the moon) at the Théâtre Robert Houdin (Deslandes and Richard 1966, 406). Notably, in the 1890 original poster for the show printed by the Parisian Imprimerie Charles Lévy (and part of the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France), we can also identify a personification of the goddess Phoebe and a laughing moon face, two other main highlights of Le voyage dans la Lune. Apart from the theatre, the same motifs can be found in La Lune à un mètre (The Astronomer’s Dream, Georges Méliès, 1898) (see Figure 3), whose protagonist is also an old scholar dressed up as a magician who observes the night sky from what seems to be an ancient observatory, where he encounters a gigantic moon-face and a mischievous lunar deity. The comparison between La Lune à un mètre and Le voyage dans la Lune, thus, confirms the reiteration of the astronomer type, the moon face, and the lunar deity. Moreover, these and many other iconographic elements are also part of Méliès’ theatrical repertoire (as confirmed by the following analysis). Therefore, the fact that the astronomer type, the moon face, and the lunar deity appear, again and again, in different contexts where they are offered as attractions for spectator entertainment constitutes validation of the intrinsic exhibitionism of his entire oeuvre. At the same time, though, Méliès’ critical approach to positivistic ideology surfaces amongst the film’s attractions and magic tricks. In fact, as Sandner emphasises, in contradistinction to Verne’s enthusiasm, ‘Méliès implicitly questions the progress of science by portraying the scientists as just another subset of the huckster magician in a long line of hucksters from ancient Egypt to Modern Europe’ (1998, 18).

Figure 3. The astronomer in La Lune à un mètre by Georges Méliès (1898).

The Verne-inspired projectile rocket and cannon: a multi-source referencing strategy

From the previous overview, the scientist-magician emerges as a recurrent figure related to theatrical and pictorial sources, which have satirical intent. In fact, his portrayal appears to lampoon the alleged supremacy of science that afforded Western civilisation unprecedented arrogance and the false belief in superiority over non-Western populations. As demonstrated, then, the sci-fi narrative functions as a playful attack on the myth of progress and its military applications; it originates in De la Terre à la Lune but is channelled by a very different narrative and human comic types. Therefore, only a very few effective features of the original Vernian storytelling are included in Le voyage dans la Lune. The explanation is that Méliès’ thematic and iconic appropriation is functional to the exhibitionistic strategy dominant in his film production and, more generally, in the cinema of attractions. At the same time, the presence of tricks such as stop-motion substitution at the beginning of the film confirms such an attractional quality.

A similar line of thinking is valid for the Verne-inspired gigantic Columbiad, the projectile rocket, and the interplanetary crossing. Thus, it is appropriate for several reasons to observe more closely the way these literary features are represented in the original context and transposed in the filmic configuration. Firstly, it is again a matter of iconographic variation on the theme. The selective re-use of the projectile rocket and the gigantic cannon offers an apt example. The eccentric spaceship reminds us, in its shape and structure, of the book illustration entitled ‘The Arrival of the Projectile at Stone’s Hill’ (Verne 2019, 122) (see Figure 4). However, the launch site differs completely: it is not the virgin lands of Florida, as with De la Terre à la Lune, but the ‘Foundries’ (Solomon 2011a, 227), which are chosen as the location for the first appearance of the iconic vessel. The explanation is that another visual model comes into play: Jacques Offenbach’s Le voyage dans la Lune (1874), an opéra féerie similarly based on Verne’s De la Terre à la Lune. This second iconographical correlation can be easily verified by the parallel between the operetta tableau n.5 entitled ‘Le Roi Cosmos’ (reproduced in the operetta’s stereoscope cards preserved at the Cinémathèque française) (see Figure 5) and the film scene n.3 entitled ‘The Workshop: Constructing the Projectile’ (227). Evidently, both the stage and film settings differ from the natural landscape pictured in the book illustration cited above.

Figure 4. ‘The arrival of the projectile at Stone’s Hill’ by Henri de Montaut in Autour de la Lune 1869 by Jules Verne (1869). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Figure 5. Tableau n. 5 ‘Le Roi Cosmos’ in Le voyage dans la Lune by Jacques Offenbach (1874), reproduced in the operetta’s stereoscope cards preserved at the Cinematheque francaise. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Similar reasoning applies to the cannon. The film version evokes the shape and exaggerated dimensions of the one represented in the book. Nonetheless, although some of its distinctive features are kept, it is not a replica of the final prototype. Rather, the model of the cinematic Columbiad is the image entitled ‘Ideal Sketch of J.T Maston’ (Verne 2019, 40) that pictured the exemplar imagined by J.T Maston (as the title suggests), and not the actual cannon constructed. The latter, instead, is interred and placed on the summit of the wild Stone’s Hill, as the book illustrations entitled ‘The work progressed regularly’ (72) and ‘Fire!’ (138) indicate.

Furthermore, it is noteworthy that another primary model for the film’s cannon, in addition to the novel and its illustrations, is, once again, the theatrical version staged in the Offenbach féerie. This becomes apparent by considering the féerie tableau n. 3 ‘Le Cannon’. Here, an enormous Columbiad is captured from a diagonal perspective and occupies a large portion of the painted scenery, to the point that the architectural frame partially hides its bore, and its muzzle is entirely covered. Nevertheless, why has this stage model been preferred to the written one? Possibly, it is a question of visual effectiveness. As Thierry Lefebvre remarks, ‘Méliès was content to take up “textually”’ (2011, 55) the same angle “‘Vanloo, Leterrier and Mortier’s stage adaptation adopted” (55). In this way, he aimed to replicate an equal perception of monumentality and to even amplify it. To this end, the film version has an even greater inclination and is more distant from the ground level. Obviously, such an exaggeration of the cannon’s depiction is primarily intended to create an impression upon the audience. However, it is also reasonable to read it as a satirical hyperbole of military fanaticism and imperialist delusions of grandeur, which is ultimately consistent with the idea of the moon’s colonisation. Moreover, the influence of féerieque conventions can be detected in the film scene n. 7 entitled ‘The monster Gun. March Past of the Gunners. Saluting the Flag’ (Solomon 2011a, 228) (see Figure 6). The passage opens with the explorers approaching the entrance of the space vessel. Whilst they are climbing up a ladder to enter the cabin, they are surrounded by a military parade, the members of which, though, are not real bluejackets but female dancers in succinct naval uniforms. The exhibition of the female body is at the centre of this sexy interlude that interrupts the flux of the action and is spectacularised according to a practice very common in the féerieque production (analysed more in detail in the following paragraphs). Thus, this interval prominently exposes the bond between the film and the theatrical tradition in terms of performative paradigms.

Figure 6. Lady sailors in the scene entitled ‘Saluting the Flag’ in Le voyage dans la Lune by Georges Melies (1902).

The considerations made thus far for the film’s cannon and projectile rocket can be extended to the interplanetary crossing. The film narrative deviates fundamentally from De la Terre à la Lune because, unlike the book, Méliès’ astronomers arrive at their destination. Moreover, in the scene, the recurrent anti-imperialistic message is made most forcefully when the ultimate attack against an uncontaminated area is portrayed as a bullet rocket literally perforating one eye of the anthropomorphised moon face (see Figure 7). Notably, the portrayal of such an important moment involves an outstanding optical effect, namely what Paolo Cherchi Usai called the ‘tracking shot’ (2011, 25). The moon, pictured on a movable background, advances toward the fixed camera, creating the illusion of movement. Therefore, if the reference to the Offenbach operetta and the reference to a pre-existing theatrical repertoire point to the dependency on spectacular paradigms for the film mise-en-scène and performance, the tracking shot and other purely cinematographic techniques are indicative of the originality of the French filmmaker’s style. In these terms, what Gaudreault described as Méliès’ trickality better accounts for his referencing strategy, his selection of pre-existing narrative and visual elements, and their re-use within his imperial farce. This is amongst the reasons for his filmmaking and trucage to have stood out in comparison to both contemporary magic theatre and early-film production.

Figure 7. ‘Landed right into the Eye!’ in Le voyage dans la Lune by Georges Melies (1902).

This hypothesis on the Méliès’s complex attitude toward an extant spectacular and visual repertoire is substantiated by the iconographical roots of the distinctive anthropomorphised moon face. Verne’s writings and Offenbach’s Le voyage dans la Lune are, once again, the primary models for the cinematic staging. The correspondences between the theatrical and cinematic versions are, though, not limited to their mise-en-scène but also include the advertising materials. The 1886 poster designed by the famous French artist Jules Chéret for the Théâtre de la Gaîté (Bargiel and Le Men 2010, 67–68) offers a suitable example. The stratified illustration promotes the féerie, showing its main highlights, including the cannon, the lunar landscape, and the Selenites’ kingdom. Naturally, the moon could not be left out. Depicted as a gigantic anthropomorphic face, it floats in the background, supposedly observing the scene from above. Evidently, it is not a compositional element in a representational picture but a disconnected iconic symbol in a collage of disjointed images. Fundamentally, it works as an appealing item of an advertising visual text that recalls the most evocative features of Verne’s fantastic adventures. The direct source of the Offenbach féerie - and, by extension, that of the Méliès film – is, in turn, Autour de la Lune (1870), the second chapter of Verne’s lunar diptych. More specifically, the image entitled ‘It is the fault of the moon’ (Verne 2019, 255) in the edition illustrated by Émile Bayard (Alphonse de Neuville was the engraver) (see Figure 8) is likely to be the basis of the féerieque and filmic humanised lunar face. The illustration shows a dark sphere behind which a giant white orb is grimacing. To be precise, in this case, it is the sun to be humanised, while the earth’s satellite ‘has come and placed herself like a screen’ (253) between it and the space vessel. Despite this slight discrepancy, what really concerns us is that an anthropomorphised celestial body is pictured and provides the perfect model for a scenographic moon staging.

Figure 8. ‘C’est la faute de la Lune’ by Emile Bayard and Alphonse de Neuville in Jules Verne’s Autour de la Lune (1870).

However, the genesis of the moon face’s iconography may refer to an anterior figurative tradition. To discover its sources, it is appropriate to consider a variegated astrological collection of Renaissance calendars, such as the sixteenth-century Le grand calendrier et compost des bergers, as well as naked-eye and telescopic star atlases, including the Cosmographia (1544) by Sebastian Münster, the Coelum Stellatum Christianum (1627) by Julius Schiller, the Harmonia Macrocosmica (1660) by Andreas Cellarius, and the Atlas Coelestis (1729) by John Flamsteed. Amongst the later exemplars, the so-called Flammarion engraving (Flammarion 1888, 163) (see Figure 9) is of particular interest. The metaphorical illustration, possibly inspired by Münster’s Cosmographia, was part of the visual apparatus of L’atmosphère: météorologie populaire by Camille Flammarion. The image portrays a man kneeling under a spherical heavenly vault. His head and one hand extend beyond ‘the point where the earth and the heavens’ (‘le point où le ciel et la Terre se touchent’ [163]) meet, pointing to higher cosmic machinery. Notably, inside the vault, a sun and a moon with humanised faces appear, providing an iconographical correspondence. However, this is not the only detail concerning L’atmosphère: météorologie Populaire that deserves our attention. Beyond the iconographical analogy, John Frazer detected one at least equally important correspondence: the author of the astronomical essay, Flammarion, may be the historical figure who inspired the fictional character of Professor Barbenfouillis. His role as the first president of the Société astronomique, which the Astronomic Club evidently echoes, substantiates Frazer’s hypothesis (1979, 98). Therefore, the analysis of the ensemble of visual sources inspiring the film staging of the Vernian cannon, projectile rocket, and moon landing does not solely demonstrate the complexity and stratification of Méliès’ referencing style, it also points to the anti-militarist sub-text behind his imperial farce.

Figure 9. Flammarion engraving in L’Atmosphère: Météorologie Populaire (1888) by Camille Flammarion.

The farcical adventures of the conquerors of the moon

As shown thus far, the combination of recurrent motifs, the re-use of extant visual sources and the intrinsic attractional quality of Méliès style shape the scientist-magician type, the interplanetary crossing, and the inventive space technology. A similar interpretation can be proposed, once the target has been reached, for the film protagonists’ second acquired role: the explorer. This additional comic type is associated with the new iconographic and narrative nucleus in the shift from the earthly to the lunar reality. The explorer’s characterisation, though, not only corresponds to a new set of references, corroborating our hypothesis of multimedia referencing but also resumes the caricature of the hero of imperial romance and amplifies its connotations. A closer examination of their extra-terrestrial encounters with a lunar deity and the inhabitants of the moon validates this assumption.

Firstly, the earthmen run into Phoebus/Phoebe,³ the divine incarnation of the moon, and her retinue. More precisely, once having landed on a desert-like landscape, exhausted by the journey, the explorers fall asleep. Upset by their arrival, though, the lunar goddess causes an intense snowfall, waking them and forcing their escape into an underground cavern. Her depiction is particularly interesting in terms of intermedial iconography and generic conventions. The scene seems to have classical roots. Specifically, the myth of Endymion as narrated in Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica (2008, 336-337) is likely to be the source of the film scene n. 12 entitled ‘The Dream (the Bodies, the Great Bear, Phoebus, the Twin Stars, Saturn)’ (Solomon 2011a, 228) (see Figure 10). According to the ancient writer, he was a handsome young shepherd with whom Selene fell in love. At her request, Endymion was cast by Zeus into a perpetual sleep, but only after giving him eternal youth and beauty.

Figure 10. Phoebe/Phoebus in the scene entitled ‘The Dream (the Bodies, the Great Bear, Phoebus, the Twin Stars, Saturn)’ in Le voyage dans la Lune by Georges Melies (1902).

Furthermore, the same classical episode has inspired a long-term iconography popular in French academic painting that may be the origin of Méliès’ mise-en-scène. On a general basis, the hypothesis is supported by the comparison with a few well-known pictorial masterpieces depicting the goddess. The first figurative paradigm under examination is Endymion. Effet de lune (Endymion. Moonlight Effect, also known as The Sleep of Endymion, 1791) by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson and part of the Louvre collection. It is highly possible that Méliès was aware of this artwork given its fame amongst the French cultural and artistic elite (François-René de Chateaubriand, Honoré de Balzac, and Charles Baudelaire among others), as well as its acquisition by the Louvre in 1818. The analogy between the sleeping pose assumed by the youthful shepherd in the painting and those of the film’s explorers substantiates this hypothesis.

In addition, an even closer iconographic reference that confirms our proposition of pictorial iconography behind the film scene is Séléné et Endymion (Endymion and Selene) (see Figure 11). This watercolour, realised by Victor-Florence Pollet around the mid-nineteenth century, is now part of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, to which Mr F. R. Bryan gave it in 1902. Nonetheless, before that date, it was held in France. It cannot be thus excluded that Méliès saw it. This assumption is supported by the film echoing diverse iconic traits of the lunar deity. As with the canvas, in Le voyage dans la Lune, the character materialises in the night sky, lying inside a crescent moon suspended above the ground. However, she does not observe her beloved from above (as in the watercolour) but assaults the irritating, sleeping newcomers, subverting the original meaning with irony.

Figure 11. Séléné et Endymion (mid-nineteenth century) by Victor Florence Pollett. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Lastly, a further and more relevant pictorial iconographic root may be found in Gustave Moreau’s Nyx, déesse Nuit (Nyx, Night Goddess, 1880) (see Figure 12). As with Pollet’s Séléné et Endymion, the personification of a celestial entity – in this case, the night – is represented as a female figure lying inside a semi-circular niche whilst suspended in the night sky. Undeniably, a few differences occur between Moreau’s metaphorical incarnation of the night and Méliès’ moon goddess, including their different poses – one lies reclined over a moon slice, the other is sitting on it – and outfits. Despite these slight discrepancies, though, the essential traits defining the pictorial model seem to re-emerge in the film’s staging, confirming a possible reference. This assumption is also corroborated by the biographical reconstruction of Méliès’ formative years in Madeleine Malthête-Méliès’ Georges Méliès: l’enchanteur. In fact, as she reports:

L’illustre artiste [Gustave Moreau] aurait consenti, en effet, à donner des leçons particulières au jeune Méliès qui, dans l’atelier du maître, aurait pu rencontrer des jeunes peintres de talent, tel Paul Degas, at aussi des écrivains de la nouvelle génération.⁴

(Malthête-Méliès2011, 59)

Figure 12. Nyx, déesse Nuit by Gustave Moreau (1880). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Together with meeting talented artists and writers of the new generation, the private lessons in Moreau’s studio during the early 1880s also provided Méliès with an artistic background and an opportunity to see the French symbolist master’s works, including the 1880 Nyx, déesse Nuit.

However, it is also necessary to emphasise that the mythological and pictorial sources are again submitted to Méliès’ re-utilisation and multi-referential strategy. Like the scientist-magician, Phoebe lying on a moon slice constitutes a recurrent motif that previously appeared in Méliès’ magic shows, such as Les Farces de la Lune ou les Mésaventures de Nostradamus and La Lune à un mètre. At the same time, the charming snowfall is the ulterior evidence of the influence of Offenbach’s Le voyage dans la Lune and, in particular, that of the féerie tableau n.8 entitled ‘Ballet des flocons de neige’. Lastly, Phoebus/Phoebe’s farcical meteorological attack represents both the prototypical féerieque sexual interlude and an act of rupture against this generic convention.

As Victoria Duckett emphasised, spectators are engaged in the astronomers’ dreamlike fantasising over the goddess’ feminine beauty (2011, 171). Indeed, as she explains, the woman is visualised as a ‘decorative and seductive object’ (171) according to the praxis diffused in late nineteenth-century popular entertainment and theatre, but also following the long-term objectification of the female nude in visual and pictorial tradition. In this light, her body itself is exhibited as one of the film’s attractions. At the same time, though, as Duckett observes, the filmic personification of the moon does not passively submit to the male gaze: she suddenly produces a driving snow, subverting the ‘gendered difference’ (171) and creating a comic effect. In this way, Méliès dealt with the féerieque eroticization of the moon personification in a subversive manner, even if a certain degree of ambiguity and voyeurism persists behind his playful depiction.

Furthermore, an anti-imperialist value possibly lies in such a subversion of the Endymion myth. As Duckett emphasised, thus, instead of asking her beloved to be cast into a perpetual slumber, the lunar deity ‘casts the scientists out of her celestial sphere’ (176). In this sense, the explorers’ sudden awakening from their reveries because of Phoebe’s reaction may also comically refer to French colonial aspirations and their failure, as with the previously mentioned Expédition du Mexique. At the same time, this could be equally read as a form of ‘satirical reversal’ (Rieder 2012, 6) that Rieder recognised as the response to imperialist ‘fantasies of appropriation’ (6) behind many marvellous journeys between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Lastly, we should notice that Duckett’s interpretation of Méliès’ representation of Phoebus/Phoebe and its possible connections with Rieder’s notion of satirical reversal must be extended to all the sources of the lunar goddess’ iconography, going beyond merely the theatrical premises and thereby including fine arts and mythology.

As seen thus far, the representation of the lunar deity and the protagonists of Le Voyage dans la Lune somehow subvert the dominant imperialist ideology and the spectacular conventions of the time with an ironical approach. However, where Méliès’ critical counter-message seems to express its major criticism is in the description of the second extra-terrestrial encounter with the Selenites, the advanced civilisation appearing in the last section of Le Voyage dans la Lune. Notably, here again, the primary source for the film narrative is a written model: the previously mentioned H. G. Wells’ The First Men in the Moon (or rather its French translation by Henry-D. Davray entitled Les premiers hommes dans la lune published by Félix Juven in 1901). However, as with the Verne-inspired cannon and projectile rocket, the influence of the novel is not limited to the prose but also includes the visual apparatus of the book, illustrated by Martin van Maële. This assumption may be easily verified by comparative analysis of the film astronomists’ exploration of the lunar territory and their misadventures in the underground grotto.

In the book narrative, an English businessman, Mr Bedford, and a scientist, Mr Cavor, undertake a space trip aboard a glass sphere made of Cavorite (a gravity-defying metallic alloy invented by Cavor), reaching the moon surface where they come across the Selenites. As with the film, from first contact, their relations with the alien civilisation are rather unfriendly. Intoxicated after eating an alien ‘abominable fungus’ (Wells 2012, 411), Bedford aggressively approaches a group of lunar inhabitants. In response, the alien creatures capture him and his companion, taking them by force to the subterranean environment where the moon population spends freezing lunar nights.

In this situation, Bedford and Cavor react antithetically. The former manifests prototypical colonialist aspirations: he plans to escape only to come ‘back in a bigger sphere with guns’ (Wells 2012, 435) to conquer the earth’s satellite and seize its goldfields. The scientist, instead, is more concerned about understanding the alien society than subjugating it, showing an ethnographic interest. Despite this, Cavor does not refrain from injuring, or even killing, several Selenites in his escape. Overall, as Rieder points out, the protagonists’ reactions toward the lunar society recall the double European attitude to what was perceived as ‘the exotic other in the context of scientific exploration and colonialist appropriation’ (2012, 76) that lights up ‘the plots of “romantic” lost-race fiction’ (40). Following his line of argument, in fact, Bedford manifests the ‘discoverer’s fantasy’ (31), resulting in a juridical foundation for the appropriation of natives’ land because of their supposed under-utilisation of natural resources. On the other hand, as Rieder argues, Cavor expresses the ‘anthropologist’s fantasy’ (31), according to which the past of the more technologically advanced Western society would have been revealed by the study of non-Western ones. Wells’ moon exploration engages with the literary motifs on the basis of these ‘fantasies of appropriation in (and sometimes of) the “virgin territory” of previously inaccessible foreign lands’ (40). At the same time, though, as in other nineteenth-century impossible voyages, this ‘was primarily a vehicle for satire’ (36) since Wellsian sci-fi storytelling gave its readers an opportunity to reflect on their ‘culture and a platform for philosophical debate’ (36).

In a way similar to Wells’ novel, an anti-imperialist message can be detected in the final section of Le Voyage dans la Lune, even if expressed through different means. After their escape, Barbenfouillis and the other astronauts accidentally arrive in an underground cavern. Whilst they are staring at the exceptional alien vegetation, especially at an over-size extra-terrestrial mushroom, a Selenite suddenly materialises. The lunar creature comes close to the newcomers, jumping around them. In reaction, the explorers’ leader hits out with his umbrella at the unlucky alien, which disappears in a ball of smoke. However, others of his kind arrive, surrounding and taking the earthmen as captives to the royal moon palace. In this instance, Barbenfouillis, once again, manifests his aggressive nature. He succeeds in freeing himself and violently attacks the king, making him vanish too, and enabling a last daring escape by himself and his companion.

Close scrutiny of the film scene n. 18, entitled ‘In the Interior of the Moon. The Giant Mushroom Grotto’ (Solomon 2011a, 228), reveals an iconographic analogy with The First Men in the Moon through the giant alien mushroom. This hypothesis can be firstly verified in the book, more precisely in the passage where the protagonists find a spot full of unusual ‘coralline shapes of many feet in height’ (Wells 2012, 396) that turn out to be enormous puffballs. Furthermore, the visual apparatus of the 1901 French edition substantiates this assumption. In particular, the illustrations entitled ‘Je m’y cramponnai dans un état d’infinie stupéfaction’ (‘I clung to it in a state of infinite amazement’ [127]), ‘Le veau lunaire’ (‘The mooncalf’ [151]) and ‘Maintenant nous ne faisions que manger’ (‘For a time we did nothing but eat’ [159]) all, to some degree, include these gigantic mushrooms.

On a general level, the novel and film present a series of superficial environmental correspondences. Above all, the complex system of artificial subterranean spaces and tunnels described in the literary source may be equally found in the film’s moon settings, although it is turned into a picturesque cavern below the surface full of unusual floral species – above all, the previously described mushrooms. However, if Wells’ articulated storytelling is randomly echoed in Le Voyage dans la Lune, a selection of narrative elements, such as the earthmen’s imprisonment and their subsequent escape, are simplified, freely elaborated, and included in Méliès’ film. This is because, as already noted in the analysis of the re-use of the Vernian cannon and projectile rocket, the partial transposition of Wellsian texts within the second half of the film underwent Méliès’ distinctive trickality. Following this logic and referring once again to Gaudreault’s theory on Méliès’ filmmaking, it is easy to see how ‘the narrative aspects of his films remained totally secondary’ (1987, 112) since the priority is to create an amusing ‘cinematic spectacle – bringing to the nascent medium elaborate studio sets, make-up, costumes, trick effects, etc’. (112). Furthermore, we can suggest that ‘the spectacular context of his magic acts’ (112), held accountable for the singular proto-narrative structure of Le Voyage dans la Lune, is equally at the origin of the referencing style found within it. Here, Wellsian suggestive elements become barely more than the pretext for a succession of comic sketches and illusionistic tricks.

An analogous key of interpretation can be applied to the anti-imperialist sub-text emerging in the film’s lunar episodes, as we may verify by a brief look at Barbenfouillis’ behaviour towards the Selenites. The first encounter with a harmless alien creature in the grotto is indicative. The film scene recalls the aggressive conduct shown by Bedford under the effect of alien mushrooms described above but, once again, deviates from the original storytelling and acquires a farcical tone and a spectacular value. The violent reaction of the Professor is, in fact, intended to enact the magic disappearance of the alien (it vanishes in a cloud of smoke once punched with the tip of the umbrella) (see Figure 13) in one of many stop-motion substitutions. In this sense, the aggression against the Selenite could be most likely considered as a spectacular and comic device used throughout the film to amuse its audience. This hypothesis is substantiated by the comparison with other magic disappearances (and appearances) which are rather common in Méliès’ filmography, including Le Manoir du Diable (The Haunted Castle, 1896), Le Royaume des fées (Fairyland; or, the Kingdom of the Fairies, 1903), and Le chaudron infernal (The Infernal Cauldron and the Phantasmal Vapours, 1903). As Frazer emphasises, the fact that Selenites were ‘played by acrobats from the Folies Bergère’ (1979, 97) is a further indication of the spectacular reinterpretation of the book characters in the filmic mise-en-scène.

Figure 13. ‘Encounter with the Selenite’ in Le voyage dans la Lune by Georges Melies (1902).

However, although Barbenfouillis’ and his companions’ behaviour could be seen as a further attraction in Le Voyage dans la Lune, this does not debar any critical commentary upon their paradoxical attempt to conquer the moon. The controversial ending (missing from many prints, Solomon 2011b, 8–9) picturing the celebrations in honour of the heroes’ return challenges for one last time our understanding of the film’s meaning and form. After escaping the angry aliens, all the explorers succeed in reaching the capsule and, with a lunar passenger, eventually land safely on their home planet. There, a triumphal march occurs, where the Selenite, who unwillingly arrives on earth with the earthmen, is tied up with rope and dragged through the crowd. Moreover, to conclude the public parade, a statue dedicated to Barbenfouillis is inaugurated. The monument portrays him in a conqueror pose and is accompanied by the motto ‘Labor Omnia Vincit’ (‘hard work triumphs over everything’ [Le voyage dans la Lune 00:14:44–45]) (see Figure 14). The epilogue of the film explorers’ adventures reveals, once again, what Sandner indicates as the “ambivalence of Méliès’ work” (2012, 23) which defines the way he approached imperial ideology and its reworking throughout Wells’ imperial satire. As with Verne-inspired scenes, the lunar episodes similarly conjugate the Wellsian text and criticism according to the spectacular paradigms dominating his film spectacle. Therefore, as Sandner concludes, Méliès reworked imperial romance and science fiction as they were seen through a ‘funhouse mirror, laughing off what may be too uncomfortable to be looked at up close and straight on’ (1998, 24). In these terms, we may add that the astronomers’ celebrative monument displayed in the evocative finale, and its parodical re-elaboration of traditional statuary and imperial imagery behind it, is just the last visual index of the anti-colonialist sub-message surfacing within the film scenes.

Figure 14. ‘Inauguring of the commemorative statue by the major and the council’ in Le voyage dans la Lune by Georges Melies (1902).

Conclusion

From the analysis of the dual role of the film protagonists and their adventures, a series of iconographic and thematic correspondences may be identified between Le voyage dans la Lune and its literary sources, De la Terre à la Lune and The First Men in the Moon. Clearly, the members of the Astronomic Club are inspired by Barbicane’s and his companions’ paradoxical portrayals, even if not faithfully. At the same time, despite its debt to written texts, the film can hardly be regarded as a straight adaptation. Indeed, two literary models coexist in Le voyage dans la Lune, and only certain effective diegetic elements are selected from the original storytelling to be re-used in the filmic configuration. This is because, as demonstrated above, Méliès’ trickality defines the visual display in Le voyage dans la Lune, by having an equal impact on the protagonists’ description, the referencing strategy and the narrative structure of the film. As with other filmic key features, thus, the extravagant scientist-magicians and grotesque explorers’ characterisation is determined by the nature of his cinematic spectacle, its intrinsic attractional quality, and its reliance on conventions and visual motifs derived from the non-traditional and magic theatre. In fact, analysis of the iconographic roots of the scientist-magicians reveals his resemblances to the mask of Pierrot, as well as the astronomer and conjurer types reiterated in Mélièsian theatrical and cinematic productions. Analogous assumptions apply to Phoebus/Phoebe. This is because they are not represented as unique individuals with one unrepeatable, credible psychology. Rather, they are recurring human types responding to a series of specific functions within the filmic show and part of Méliès’ repertoire of wonders, just like the narrative structure and set design or his signature illusionistic tricks.

However, as I have argued, the set of references included in the film far exceeds literature and theatre. The stratified thematic and figurative influences include seventeenth-century Flemish and French academic paintings, book illustrations, and even Renaissance calendars. The previous survey of the multiple sources re-used and combined in Le voyage dans la Lune demonstrates not only the importance of pictorial tradition and visual culture but also confirms their function as attractions in the filmic configuration belonging to Méliès’ repertoire. For instance, the anthropomorphised moon face originates in the Flammarion engraving and other Renaissance calendars, is re-elaborated in the book’s illustrations, is later included in Chéret’s 1886 affiche designed for Offenbach’s Le voyage dans la Lune and, lastly, is incorporated in Méliès’ version. Following this strategy, this and other heterogeneous motifs are extracted from their original context and lose their initial semantic and aesthetic value. In exchange, they are brought together by Méliès in his film spectacle in order to create a fantastic earthly and moon reality. On the other hand, as in many other film scenes, a purely cinematic technique (the tracking shot in this case) is involved, corroborating Gaudreault’s assumptions about the originality of Méliès’ filmmaking.

Similar considerations can be extended to the way Méliès engaged with his cultural background and the values defining late nineteenth-century French bourgeois society. In particular, as Sandner’s comparative analysis suggests, Le voyage dans la Lune and its literary models all somehow put into question the dominating Western attitude toward distant civilisations and the colonialist fantasies that inspired imperial romance and travel writings. However, as he specifies, ‘in De la Terre à la Lune, Verne celebrates science while, paradoxically, satirizing the military’s utilisation of science’ (1998, 24). In Wells’ The First Men in the Moon, instead, the sci-fi storytelling becomes a pretext to take ‘a darker look at the personal and collective desire’ behind “the nineteenth-century imperial project (1998, 24). By contrast, in Le voyage dans la Lune, Méliès freely re-elaborates these literary sources creating an ‘imperial farce’ (24) in which to ‘ease tensions surrounding the rise of science and the “gritty heights” of imperialism, ways to laugh at it all’ (24). In it, the ‘darker possibilities of the on-rushing future’ (24) are merged with fantastic and magic elements, as well as special effects – including stop motion substitution and the tracking shot - intended to astonish the audience. For this reason, although they share an analogous exhibitionistic quality, the Méliès film profoundly differs from other exemplars of the cinema of attractions in the way they deal with the imperial attitude and colonial imaginary. As already suggested in the introduction, such a difference is made evident by the comparison with many Lumière actualities, including the Village Ashanti series or Gabriel Veyre’s Indochina films, where a fetishist gaze on other distant civilisations supported French colonial aspirations. We can add that, beyond moving pictures, the same interpretative principle can be extended to the spectacular paradigms and visual sources that influenced Le voyage dans la Lune. This is the case, for example, of the representation of Phoebus/Phoebe and its reference to the iconography of Selene and Endymion that, as I argued, reveal an ironical rupture of gendered stereotypes behind féerieque conventions and pictorial tradition, as well as a possible anti-imperialist satirical reversal. Therefore, we can conclude that Le voyage dans la Lune can be seen as a stratified palimpsest in which different iconographic and thematic layers are rooted in, and concurrently critically engage with, the visual and popular culture of the time, creating multiple levels of meaning.

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sabrina Francesca Crivelli

Sabrina Francesca Crivelli is a PhD researcher in Film Studies at the University of Birmingham. Her research is centered on film theory and aesthetics with a particular focus on the link between European silent and modern cinema, visual culture, and pictorial tradition. Her previous activities as an essayist and theorist include being a section editor for Arte|Documento (Ca’ Foscari, Venice) and a contributor for Itinera (Universita degli Studi, Milan) and Artribune.

Notes

1. It has been consulted the digitised restoration of the only hand-coloured version of the nitrate print in colour found, in the mid-1990s, in the Filmoteca de Catalunya, Spain, and presented on the opening night of the Cannes Film Festival in 2011. Le voyage dans la Lune. Dir. Georges Méliès. France. 1902. <https://archive.org/details/le-voyage-dans-la-lune-melies-g--1902-fr_202102/01+Le.Voyage.Dans.La.Lune-Melies.G--1902-fr.mp4>. [accessed 11 January 2021].

2. ‘La fondation sur le continent africain d’une société́ florissante’ (Duval 1877, 44).

3. It is worth noting that the female figure, instead of the female epithet Phoebe, is randomly given the masculine name Phoebus used for Apollo. See the English list of the film’s tableaux (Solomon 2011a, 228).

4. ‘The famous artist [Gustave Moreau] would indeed have agreed to give private lessons to a young Méliès who, in the master’s studio, could have met with talented young painters, such as Paul Degas, as well as with writers of the new generation’ (Malthête-Méliès 2011, 59).