Georges Méliès

Dislocation mystérieuse, 1901, 1m47s
Star Film Catalogue Nos. 335-336

A clown explores a cave, in which two stools stand either side of a small table. The left-hand one contains a bottle, the right-hand one a glass and a candle. The clown jumps over the table, then sits on it. He spots the bottle and the glass, and his right arm detaches itself from his body, floating over to pick up the bottle and bring it over to him. His left arm performs a similar feat with the glass. He pours himself a drink, and his arms return the bottle and glass to their respective stools, before joining themselves back onto his body. He produces a pipe and looks around for a light. Spotting the candle, his head detaches itself from his body and floats across to it, lights the pipe, floats back and reattaches itself. He tries to make himself comfortable, crossing one leg over the other, before deciding that it’s better if each leg detaches itself and gets a stool apiece. The table then vanishes, and the clown falls to the ground. He summons his legs back, and they reattach themselves. He begins to dance, his limbs and head detaching themselves from his trunk before reforming to allow him to take a bow. For an encore, he removes his head, sits on it, and replaces it. He then tucks it under his arm and leaves the cave.

Very much in the tradition of The Four Troublesome Heads (Un Homme de têtes, 1898), The One-Man Band (L’Homme orchestre, 1900) and The Triple Conjuror and the Living Head (L’Illusionniste double et la tête vivante, 1900), this is one of Méliès’ more spectacular visual conceits. It nominally returns to the territory of The Four Troublesome Heads, only here the clown-suited protagonist (played, as ever, by Méliès himself) manages to detach not merely his head but also his four limbs, each of which develops a lively life of its own.

As with the earlier films, the joins are occasionally visible - the stools occasionally slip out of register, revealing the superimpositions, and some black-clad shoulders can clearly be seen attached to the nominally separated head - but this does nothing to detract both from the technical achievement and the sheer sense of fun. Once again, Méliès is unashamedly showing off his box of tricks in the style of a stage magician, deliberately jumping over the table at the start to suggest that there are no hidden wires, before pulling off a feat that would be impossible to realise in a theatre. The nonchalance with which Méliès casually tucks his head under his arm before leaving belies the amount of planning that must have gone into the film’s realisation.

Though in generally good physical condition (until the very final frames, which degenerate into a mass of chemical blotches), the print on Flicker Alley’s DVD is somewhat contrasty, though the simplicity of the staging, with the white limbs set against the dark cave-mouth, means that it could take a lot more damage before the film was adversely affected. Exposure fluctuations seem to be a by-product of Méliès’ original multiple exposures, which may also explain the faint tramlining in the more elaborate effects shots. Disappointingly, the Mont Alto Orchestra’s score makes little attempt at matching the visuals, though as a generic accompaniment it’s effective enough.

Links

• BFI Film and TV Database entry.
• Internet Movie Database entry.
• Jshaide’s review (Rotten Tomatoes forum)