Up-To-Date Spiritualism
Spiritisme abracadabrant, 1900, 1m11s
Star Film Catalogue Nos. 293
A man attempts to put his top hat on a chair, but the chair scurries off into a corner. He then places his umbrella on a stool, only to see it shoot off into the far distance. He places his hat on the same stool, only to see it rising slowly upwards and repositioning itself on the floor. He tries to retrieve it, but it shoots up into the air and drops down on the other side of the stool. He finally manages to grab it, and replaces it on his head. He then places it on a nearby table, but when he removes his coat, the hat reappears on his head. He puts it back on the table, but his coat reappears on his body, followed by the hat. His movements get more frantic as he tries to divest himself of both hat and coat, with equal lack of success - even tossing it into a corner or jumping on it ultimately have no effect. He removes his coat, places it on the floor, and lowers the table on top of it to hold it down, but the same thing happens. Defeated, he leaves the room.
In terms of its basic situation, Up-To-Date Spiritualism (whose French title means something closer to “Preposterous spiritualism”) harks back to The Bewitched Inn (L’Auberge ensorcelée, 1897), in that it features a somewhat hapless protagonist being challenged and ultimately defeated by various objects developing a life of their own. Here, he’s simply trying to remove his hat and coat, but finding it impossible thanks to the intervention of apparently supernatural forces conspiring to make him end the film in exactly the same state that he began it.
For the most part, this is a return to now very familiar basics, with the jump-cut transition reigning supreme, alongside a couple of mechanical effects as a chair scurries out of frame and his hat spontaneously elevates itself into the air. The hapless protagonist’s frenzied, almost dance-like movements recall those of Tom Whisky in Addition and Subtraction (Tom Whisky ou l’illusionniste toqué). It’s fun to watch, and doesn’t outstay its welcome, but it ultimately has little new to offer.
But despite the uncharacteristically flagging inspiration on show here, Méliès would ring more variations on this particular theme in the self-describing Going To Bed Under Difficulties (Le Déshabillage impossible, also 1900), which isn’t much more involving but at least has more of a sense of cumulative absurdity.
The untinted print on Flicker Alley’s DVD is suffers from a fair amount of surface damage (and quite a few splice marks), though there’s plenty of fine detail and none of it seriously affects appreciation. Frederick Hodges’ piano accompaniment is along the same lines to that which he devised for The Bewitch Inn - a lively, up-tempo, relentlessly repetitive number that perfectly matches what’s happening onscreen.
Links
- Internet Movie Database entry.
- Jshaide’s review (Rotten Tomatoes forum)