Divers at Work on the Wreck of the ‘Maine’
Visite sous-marine du Maine, 1898, 0m51s
Star Film Catalogue No. 147
In Havana harbour, three men clad in cumbersome diving suits descend via rope ladder to the sea bed, where they begin to explore the wreck of the ‘Maine’. One enters the ship via a gash in its side and returns with the body of a drowned sailor. He is tied to a rope and hauled up. As one diver ascends the latter, another goes back inside the ship.
With only the exception of his very first, Playing Cards (Une Partie de cartes, 1896), all of Georges Méliès’ surviving early films from 1896-7 are set in a wholly artificial environment, the action usually playing out against very obviously painted stage flats. The following year’s Divers at Work on the Wreck of the ‘Maine’ is no exception, but this time Méliès ups the ante by creating the surprisingly convincing impression that it was filmed underwater.
He does this by means of his subtlest special effect yet - he simply placed a large fishtank between the camera and the painted backdrop of the wrecked ship ‘Maine’, which three divers are exploring. It’s a very simple trick, but it works brilliantly in practice - the fish are clearly real and clearly swimming, and contrast beautifully with the realistically sluggish movements of the actors playing the divers, completing the illusion.
The film is primarily a study in atmosphere, since there is little compelling narrative content: even the retrieval of what appears to be a sailor’s corpse is treated matter-of-factly. A contemporary audience would have filled in more details, since the wrecking of the ‘Maine’ was a very recent event. On 15 February 1898, the American battleship was anchored in Havana harbour when a massive explosion blew a hole in the site and sank the ship, killing 252 sailors. To this day, no satisfactory explanation for the explosion has been devised: it was long thought to have been a mine, but a forensic investigation conducted in 1976 suggested otherwise. Regardless of the cause, it led directly to the short-lived Spanish-American war, that lasted from April till August 1898.
Méliès’ was one of many films made that year that exploited the tragedy: others include the American Mutoscope Company’s The Wreck of the ‘Maine’ and Divers at Work on the Wreck of the ‘Maine’, the International Film Manufacturing Company’s Battleship ‘Maine’, all of which appear to have been remade by Méliès, since his catalogue mentions these presumed-lost titles: The Battleship ‘Maine’ (Le Cuirassé Maine), The Cuban War and the Explosion of the ‘Maine’ in Havana (Guerre de Cuba et l’explosion du Maine à La Havane) and Visit to the Wreck of the ‘Maine’ (Visite de l’épave du Maine).
The print on Flicker Alley’s DVD is in excellent condition, with physical damage kept to a minimum and only some faint exposure fluctuations on the debit side (and even these tend to enhance the underwater effect). Frederick Hodges’ piano score adapts the descending chords and deep bass responses of Debussy’s ‘Voiles’ (Preludes I) to good effect - as with his accompaniment to A Nightmare (Le Cauchemar, 1896), the music had yet to be written when the film was made - the piece dates from 1909-10.
Links
- BFI Film and TV Database entry.
- Internet Movie Database entry.
- Jshaide’s review (Rotten Tomatoes forum).