The moon hovers against the backdrop of a cloudy night sky, its dark craters forming the famed “Man in the Moon.” Slowly the camera pushes towards the moon. It grows larger and larger in the frame until we discover that the “Man in the Moon '' is not merely craters, but instead, an actual face: complete with eyes, a nose, a mouth, and two severe eye brows. The eyes blink, the mouth moves, the “Man in the Moon'' is alive. Then, suddenly out of nowhere, a space capsule crashes into one of the man’s eyes! He squints and sticks his tongue out in pain. Someone has come to visit. This image of the injured “Man in the Moon '' has now become famous the world over. It is perhaps the most recognizable frame of George Méliès’ masterpiece A Trip to the Moon, and still today it is a symbol of one of film’s great powers: spectacle.

Méliès began his career in the entertainment industry in 1888 as a prestidigitator, performing magic tricks at his Théâtre Robert-Houdin. One of his most famous tricks was the Recalcitrant Decapitated Man, an illusion in which a professor’s severed head continues talking until it is returned to his body. An impressive illusion no doubt. But in December of 1895, Méliès would witness something that would change his career forever. On that night, Méliès witnessed a screening of films by the Lumiére brothers (sound familiar?). Upon seeing this new photographic medium, Méliès immediately recognized its power: not for documenting life, but for magic. Unlike the Lumiére’s, Méliès would not use film to simply showcase everyday events, but he would use it to wow his audiences with illusions impossible to create on stage. He would transport his audiences to whole new worlds and tell them fantastical stories.

It is this distinction that sets Méliès apart. By 1896, a year after witnessing the Lumiéres’ “actualities” Méliès had created a film, The House of the Devil, in which two knights enter a haunted house. The film is complete with flying bats that magically transform into people, skeletons appearing and disappearing, and imps bursting forth from clouds of smoke. The same year the Lumieres stunned audiences with a train arriving into a station, Méliès had created the first horror film. Coming in at roughly three minutes long, The House of the Devil is also far longer than other contemporary films. 

And so, film became Méliès’ new stage upon which to perform magic tricks. His early films such as The Astronomer’s Dream, or A One Man Band highlight his ability for showmanship. Held together by a loose narrative, the films showcase elaborate sets and costumes as well as impressive mechanical objects and, of course, photographic illusions. Deeply inspired by the Féerie genre of France, Méliès’ work is often a fantasy tale brought to life. But with A Trip to the Moon Melies set out to do far more than create another magic show. 

Unlike much of his earlier work, A Trip to the Moon is not simply a series of illusions held together by a vague story. Instead, it is a narrative highlighted with illusions. The spectacle does not exist for its own sake, but for the sake of the story. A Trip to the Moon follows the story of scientists, led by Professor Barbenfouillis (played by Méliès himself), as they set out to land on the moon. Being shot out of a large cannon the scientists crash onto the moon’s surface. There they meet the Selenites, the moon’s native population. Upon being brought to the Selenite leader, the scientists attack the Selenites and escape, accidentally taking with them a Selenite warrior. Upon returning to Earth, the scientists are praised as heroes and showcase their Selenite prisoner for audiences to marvel at. Like many of Méliès’ films A Trip is complete with fantastic costumes and elaborately painted sets. When struck the Selenites disappear with a puff of smoke. Beautiful women and an elderly man magically appear in the stars and planets in the space beyond. And yet, this spectacle has a deeper purpose: to entertain, certainly, but also to disarm. In presenting us with this fantasy Méliès is able to tear down our “walls” of disbelief in order to provide us with something much more complex.

Many historians and critics have interpreted A Trip to the Moon as Méliès’ comment on European colonialism. The parallels are clear: explorers set off to a far off land, upon meeting the native population they respond with violence, killing them. When the explorers return home they are celebrated as heroes and their prisoners enslaved for the awe of audiences. What Méliès is really doing in A Trip to the Moon, in a way that he hadn’t before, is he is using his magic tricks as an entry point for his message. Despite being on a far off moon with alien creatures, Méliès reminds us of our issues at home. Nowhere is this perhaps more elegantly juxtaposed than in the most famous frame of the film: the Man in the Moon with the rocket capsule in his eye. Here, in a single image, Méliès captures the essence of it: the human literally protruding from the fantastical. Two worlds coming together. 

And so, Méliès, the great magician, completes yet another magic trick with A Trip to the Moon. With smoke and mirrors he reveals from the darkness something about who we are as people. He takes us to another world so that we can stop and look at ourselves from a distance.