A Trip to the Moon, The Story Behind Scorsese's 'Hugo'

 A Trip to the Moon is the great film of Georges Méliès’ career. It is a film that everyone who loves the movies should see. It is for the select few who can appreciate early film. If you can't or don't know, I urge you to try. A Trip to the Moon is a wonderfully imaginative film that is brilliant in its' own way. It has the most primitive special effects and no camera movement or sound. What it does have is a simple but fun story line. It’s about a delusional scientist who goes to the moon, where he and his fellow explorers encounter aliens who run them off the moon back to Earth. It is a great fantasy, that has been remade a thousand times in a thousand different art forms, and when you watch you can see why.


At the time, 1902, it was an international hit on the lines of Avatar today. It was considered a technologically innovative marvel, but for anyone born in the last 110 years that is pretty hard to understand. It is a film of historical importance, one that any serious film buff should know, because without it, or Georges Méliès in particular, the movies would not be what they are today. 

The iconic picture of the moon being shot in the eye is from this film.

Today I saw this fifteen-minute film in full for the first time. Only in the last year have they been able to restore A Trip to the Moon to how it was originally seen, painted color and all. It was wonderful to see the rocket hit the moon scene, but I wont dwell only on that scene. The entire film is so creatively imagined and charming. It was set to the music of AIR (a modern French band. They did the film justice). The film begins with the delusional scientist explaining to his fellow delusional scientists his plan to go to the moon. Their argument and then acceptance of the plan is hilarious. The scene, and each scene after it is amazingly illustrated and detailed. I can’t help but believe that the idea of mise-en-scene began with Méliès. Each new scene is more fantastical and enjoyable to look at then the next. The art and imagery is so out-there and magical, it gives the audience an unmistakable feel for what Georges Méliès has in mind.

I think its safe to say the majority of people today watch movies, and most of those people enjoy them. All these people ought to thank Georges Méliès, because without him we may have never had movies as we have them today. The original movies were nothing more than parlor tricks. They were played at circuses along with the bearded lady. It was Méliès who saw the magic of the camera. He was the first to see the theatrical element of film, and was the first to set up a studio, and use his imagination and adapt it to the screen. To see his films is to witness the beginning of something totally new that no one had ever done before. Imagine in this day and age of finding something so totally undiscovered and being able to explore where no one has ever ventured. This is next to impossible in any art form today.

Totally uninhibited Georges Méliès gave the world five hundred films. However, as film became more popular, competition came and tastes changed. People no longer were interested in the theatrical and fantasy film that Georges loved to make. They wanted film about society, something totally outside Méliès repertoire. Thus, in time, Méliès went into obscurity. Huge debts caused him to close his studio, the first studio ever which he had built out of glass for natural light in an old greenhouse on his property.  A saddened and dejected Méliès burned over three hundred of his films on that day. Most of those films would never be seen again. He then opened up a toyshop in a train station kiosk. And here begins the story of Hugo, Martin Scorsese’s biopic of our great director. His story does not end too bitterly as Méliès is eventually rediscovered and honored in his day. Though he never made a film again.

I wish I could have met Méliès in the days of A Trip to the Moon, when his imagination was in full swing. I wonder how he would react if I took him to modern days to see what we've done with his love and how his simple editing tricks evolved into all the special effects we have. What would he have imagined for us? No doubt it would be something we had never seen or experienced before.