The Dancing Midget
La Danseuse microscopique, 1902, 2m43s
Star Film Catalogue No. 394-396
A top-hatted magician shakes out a sheet, from which his assistant emerges. The magician extracts six eggs from his assistant’s mouth, which he places onto a stand. He breaks the eggs into his hat, stirring them with his wand. He shakes a large number of feathers out of the hat over his assistant, and then extracts a large egg. He places it on the table, and it doubles in size, and then explodes, to reveal a tiny ballerina. She dances on the table-top, admired by the men, who perform crude imitations of her flowing movements. Suddenly, she grows to life-size, and the magician helps her off the table. The men place a large wooden crate onto two stands, and the assistant gets in. The magician drapes the sheet around the ballerina, and pulls it away to reveal his assistant - and the ballerina simultaneously emerges from the box. The three bow together, and the magician banishes his assistant before linking arms with the ballerina and walking into the distance.
The Dancing Midget (whose slightly more PC French title translates as ‘The Microscopic Female Dancer’) is another set of variations on familiar Méliès themes, though the central image of a tiny ballerina performing on a table-top is so delightful that it more than compensates for the sense of déjà vu that pervades much of the rest of the film, starting from the recycled set from The Dwarf and the Giant (Nain et géant, 1901).
Once again, we have the scenario of a magician and his assistant - the arrangement here is broadly similar to that in The Prince of Magicians (Excelsior!, 1901). In that film, the magician’s aide was turned into a makeshift soda siphon, while here he’s required to produce half a dozen eggs from his mouth in quick succession. Their contents are mixed in the magician’s top hat (using his wand to stir them), and a well-timed jump-cut leads to the first of the film’s oddly poetic images - this time, of an implausible number of feathers descending from the hat onto the assistant.
The centre-piece of the film involves the ballerina, who is hatched from an egg that grows to giant size - albeit, somewhat disappointingly, via jump-cuts rather than any of Méliès’s more elaborate shrinking and growing effects. But the tiny ballerina herself is wholly believable, especially given the way the men react to her and (badly) try to imitate her movements. After this high point, the film has nowhere else to go, despite Méliès attempting to maintain interest by introducing a new trick in the form of a sheet-and-coffin swapover (as usual, achieved via jump cuts).
There’s some severe damage at the beginning and end, and tramlines, speckling and mild exposure fluctuations throughout, but in general the untinted print on Flicker Alley’s DVD is in very good condition, the picture sufficiently sharp to be able to make out some background details in the superimposed material, which may not have been Méliès’ intention. Neal Kurz’s lyrical piano accompaniment fits the images to perfection.
Links
- Internet Movie Database entry.
- Jshaide’s review (Rotten Tomatoes forum)
Posted on 8th July 2008
Under: Jump-Cuts, Stage Magic, Superimposition, 1902 | No Comments »
A man, clad in a hat and a sheet, walks through a stone archway onto a street. He looks to his left, then right, and discards the hat and sheet before acknowledging the audience. He makes a demonstrative gesture with his hand, and splits into two identical twins. They have a conversation about the similarities in their height before the twin on the right puffs himself up to gigantic size. Towering over the other twin, he points and laughs before producing some confetti from his pocket and sprinkling it over him. He then shrinks back to normal size, and the twins merge back into one. He dances a pirouette, and splits back into twins again. They thumb their noses at each other before leaving.
Where the film marks an advance on its two immediate predecessors (and “immediate” is the operative word, as the Star Films catalogue suggests they were indeed made one after the other, with nothing in between) is that Méliès is combining two superimposition effects - the new expanding/shrinking one, and a familiar “twinning” one that places two identical Mélièses on the screen at the same time. Typically for Méliès, he ups the ante by having the giant Méliès sprinking confetti over the smaller one, though it’s a pity that he ends the film with a glaring technical flaw. As the Mélièses lean forward to thumb their noses at each other, their rears are cut off by the matte, and they then unrealistically disappear into the sides of the archway - thus underscoring the impression that this was primarily a technical exercise. 
In a lavishly appointed room, a woman is serenaded by a man playing a lute while balanced on a ladder propped up just outside her window. After they clasp hands and gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes, he descends to the ground. She crosses the room, beside herself with emotion. A devil appears in the alcove, causes bars to appear on her window, taunts her, and then performs a suggestive dance, gradually growing in size until he towers above her. In desperation, the woman pleads to a statue of the Madonna, who comes to life and shrinks the devil back to his original size, causing him to disappear. She then banishes the bars, and the lovers are reunited. 
However, despite the impressive build-up (in every sense), the dénouement can’t help but be a little disappointing, consisting largely of a reversal of the previous effect, at the end of which the devil simply fizzles out. Compared with the Grand Guignol head explosion of the previous film, one is entitled to feel a little short-changed, and for all the elegance of the set (the Renaissance Italian ambience is very effective), this is one of Méliès’ minor efforts.
In a laboratory, a scientist mixes some fluids together in a bottle before opening the doors to an anteroom. There, he finds a table and carries it out. On it, he places a smaller stand with a tube emerging from its base. He extracts a human head from the box and places it on the stand. The head is alive, and looks around quizzically. The scientist removes his wig to reveal that he’s the spitting image of the severed head. He picks up a set of bellows and attaches it to the tube. The head inflates to many times its original size, to its evident alarm. The scientist then turns on a tap connected to the pipe, and the head shrinks back to its original size. The scientist summons an assistant and invites him to inflate the head again - but he does it too enthusiastically, and it explodes. Enraged, the scientist throws him out before bursting into tears.
The set design is more convincing than with many previous Méliès laboratories - for instance, the one in 
Bluebeard enters the hall of his castle and walks between two lines of women - but every time he attempts to make conversation with one of them, she turns her face away. He summons servants, who bring forth vast wealth as a bribe. One of the women is reluctantly persuaded to go with him, her father dragging her hand so that it can be clasped by Bluebeard. She snatches it away and bursts into tears. Two notaries are summoned, and the couple are married. One asks for payment, and Bluebeard angrily kicks his sheaf of papers into the air. Bluebeard brings his new wife to the kitchen to show the lavish meals being prepared. Vast arrangements of food and gigantic bottles are carried through by servants. Horseplay between two of them leads to a third being knocked into a cauldron by a flying cabbage. The meal is served in the gigantic dining room, with many guests in attendance. Bluebeard introduces his new wife, whose wedding train is held up by several servants. Bluebeard proposes a toast. When the couple is alone, Bluebeard gives his wife a bunch of keys, and says that she has the freedom of his castle, with the exception of one room. He then leaves for six weeks, followed by numerous servants carrying his luggage. His wife looks at the forbidden door, clearly tempted. A satanic imp leaps out of the pages of a large book and compels her to open the door before returning from whence he came. Inside the room, she finds the hanged corpses of Bluebeard’s previous wives, and drops the key in a pool of their blood. While she tries to wash it off, the imp reappears, and the incriminating key grows to gigantic size. A fairy appears and shrinks it. Bluebeard’s eighth wife leaves, and has a disturbing dream (egged on by the imp) in which she is visited by the ghosts of her predecessors, following which she is stabbed by her husband, and eight gigantic keys frolic over her prone body before they and the imp are banished by the fairy. Bluebeard returns to find his eighth wife trying to wash blood off the forbidden key. She starts when she sees him, and he grabs her arm, trying to get the key back. She runs up to the castle battlements to consort with her sister (who is keeping a lookout for her brothers), but Bluebeard follows her, grabs her and tosses her body around. He drags her down the steps, only to find her brothers breaking through the gate. They pin Bluebeard to the wall with a sword, and the fairy emerges from the well to summon the ghosts of his wives, who throw off their veils to reveal that they’ve come back to life. They shake their fists at him in unison, but are distracted by seven noblemen appearing and paying court to them. They all leave, the last to depart retrieving his sword from Bluebeard’s belly. He falls to the ground, and the scenery gives way to reveal everyone else living happily ever after.
Following 
When she enters the forbidden chamber, Méliès milks the suspense by keeping the light levels low. We can make out strange bag-shaped things seemingly hanging from the ceiling, and of course those familiar with the story will know exactly what they are, but several seconds elapse before she manages to cross the room and fling open the curtain, to reveal the corpses of her seven predecessors. Méliès has often been described as one of the precursors of the horror genre, but this revelation has a genuine creepiness that earlier romps like 
After this, the rest of the film is more prosaic. Set in the courtyard of Bluebeard’s castle, it shows his return and ultimate subjugation at the hands of his new wife’s relatives, the only technical points of interest being his alarmingly violent subjugation of her (achieved by switching a dummy at a key moment, along similar lines to 
A man enters a mysterious cavern full of strange gargoyles and other arcane objects. Bumping into a skeleton, he takes it down and places it on a chair, waves his hands and transforms it into a woman sporting a helmet, sword and shield. He helps her up, and transforms her costume into a long, flowing dress. He stands behind her and hypnotises her into sleep, catching her falling body. He places her across two benches and removes them, leaving her suspended in mid-air. She then dissolves back into the skeleton, which the man picks up and “bows” to the audience. The man and the skeleton then dance, after which the man picks up the skeleton and takes it away. The man then causes a stool to float into the air and perform various tumbling tricks on top of a table. A woman appears, surrounded by four dancers, all clad in diaphanous dresses. The man tries to grab them, but his hands pass through their bodies, and they vanish. He then produces two stools and a smaller table and makes them dance. He then bows to the audience, shoots up in the air and re-emerges through a trapdoor in the floor. He then removes his outer garments, wig and false beard to reveal Georges Méliès, who dons a straw boater, lights a cigarette, bows again, and leaves.
There is little narrative content aside from presenting all these various visions, and if there was any doubt about the film’s underlying showing-off purpose, it’s dispelled in the closing seconds, when the magician rips off his clothes, wig and false beard to reveal the dapper Méliès himself - which may also have been a means of asserting the authorship of the film as well as the various onscreen effects.
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.
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.
A man emerges from the fireplace, bows, pats two stools and splits himself in two. The doubles sit on a stool and converse. One gets up, picks up a table, and places it between them. He then produces a shop window dummy’s head, places it on the table, and places a hat on it. It comes to life, and looks from one man to the other. One crawls under the table in search of mechanical trickery. The other initially looks puzzled, then waves his hand and the table disappears, revealing a fully-formed crouching woman. She rises to her feet and chats to the man who made her appear. The other man conspires with the viewer, tiptoes up to her surreptitiously and tries to plant a kiss on her cheek. Meanwhile, the devil has entered and, unnoticed by the two other men, causes the woman to fade away into nothingness. The two men gradually notice the devil, and flee. The devil laughs and removes his make-up, revealing himself to be the spitting image of the two men from earlier. He discards his costume, bows to the audience, and retreats back into the fireplace, where he vanishes.
It’s another demonstration of his visual sleight of hand - he knows the audience will be watching the business between the two men and the woman, and therefore won’t be looking at the third man too closely. Even if they do, the join is virtually seamless, so it’s genuinely startling when beard, eyebrows and hat are removed to reveal Méliès underneath. Small wonder he’s laughing so heartily - he’s completely second-guessed not just the film’s other characters but also the audience.
At the age of thirteen, while tending sheep, Joan of Arc is visited by Saints Catherine and Margaret, and then by Saint Michael, who orders her to free France from the English yoke and to lead the Dauphin to the French throne. She returns home in a trance-like state, but won’t cross the threshold. Her uncle tries to persuade her to stay in her native village, but she refuses and runs off. She reaches the fortified city of Vaucouleurs, and persuades the guard to admit her. She finds the garrison commander, Robert de Baudricourt, enjoying a wild party with his friends. Joan tries to convince him of her plan, and though he initially rubbishes the idea (and has to be restrained from throwing her out), but Joan persuades him to give her his sword and entrust his army to her. Orléans is freed from the English oppressor, and Joan leads a huge army through the town. On 17 July 1429, in the cathedral of Rheims, King Charles VII is blessed by Archbishop Regnault. Joan and her army try to break in to the castle of Compiègne. After a pitched battle, Joan is captured by the English. Her followers try to scale the castle, but to no avail. Joan awakes in a cell, where she has another visitation from Saint Michael, this time flanked by Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine. The jailer orders her to accompany him. On 15 March 1431, Joan is put on trial, with the indictment read by Bishop Pierre Cauchon. He orders her to sign a retraction of her claim to have heard voices. She refuses and throws the quill on the floor. In the market square at Rouen, a pyre is constructed, with a sign reading ‘Relapsed Heretic’. Flanked by Cauchon and his allies, Joan is tied to the post and burned. A soldier adds fuel to the fire, and falls to the ground, overwhelmed both by the smoke and by the magnitude of what he has contributed to. But Joan has ascended to heaven.
Despite being made as early as 1900, Georges Méliès’ Joan of Arc was in fact the second adaptation of the legend: Georges Hatot’s The Execution of Joan of Arc (Execution de Jeanne d’Arc) was made in 1897. However, with its ten-minute running time and eleven separate scenes, Méliès’ film was undoubtedly the first to attempt an overview of the entire saga, from the teenage Joan hearing voices to her military triumphs, capture and execution. In fact, when compared with the earlier multi-sequence 
Other effects are more sophisticated, and are dotted throughout the film. The appearances of the various angels in the opening scene were achieved by a combination of dissolve and superimposition - not that much earlier, he’d have been forced to use a much cruder jump-cut. Saint Michael is sporting an animated halo, presumably a mechanical effect being cranked by an invisible underling. Later, Joan’s army lays siege to the castle of Compiègne (clearly visible as a painted backdrop, since it wobbles when a ladder is placed against it) before being captured and burned at the stake, an effect achieved by releasing lots of smoke and stencil-tinting the print so that it looks as though it’s glowing with unbearable heat. Finally, a gloriously kitschy conclusion in Heaven echoes the similar apotheosis that concluded Cinderella (1899).
The print on Flicker Alley’s DVD starts off in dreadful condition, with the whole of the first scene marred by severe damage. However, things quickly improve, and much of the rest of the film looks ravishing, augmented by the stencil colours. This is the first of a handful of Méliès titles to feature a soundtrack narration, delivered in heavily accented French by Lobster Films’ Serge Bromberg. The decision to record it in English triggered knee-jerk complaints from purists, though in actual fact this is Méliès’ original text, written in English to make his films more accessible to the international marketplace. (His films on the Dreyfus Affair would certainly have benefited from something similar). The narration is accompanied by an electronic score from Brian Benison, which makes frequent use of a martial mode as Joan’s military victories pile up.
A man lays out seven chairs in a row and counts and recounts them to make sure. He sits down in the one on the far right, and splits in two, his double moving to the seat next to him. This process is repeated until there are seven men, identical except for their differing musical instruments, occupying all the chairs. They chat amongst each other until the man in the middle stands up to conduct. The six instrumentalists perform, then sit back and relax. The conductor stands up again and indicates that they should come closer. They do so, blending into each other until only the conductor is left. He makes the chairs disappear and reappear en bloc, then individually. As he is bowing to the audience, a gigantic fan rises behind him, startling him when he turns round. He sits on the only remaining chair and sinks through the floor of the stage. He then reappears on the other side of the fan, jumping over it before disappearing in a puff of smoke. The fan descends to reveal him behind it. He bows to the audience.
Méliès was no stranger to playing the lead in his films, but it’s worth noting that in this and The Four Troublesome Heads, he’s performing without any elaborate costume or make-up, as though he wanted to be as recognisable as possible. Given that the early screenings would presumably have been held in his own theatre with the man himself in attendance, this would have added an extra dimension to the fakery. It’s the work of a showman with plenty to show off, though the film’s second half sadly lacks the fireworks of the first - the multiple-Méliès orchestra is such a tour de force that the solo business with the fan can’t help but seem a bit anti-climactic.