Georges Melies
By (Author) Elizabeth Ezra
Manchester University Press
Manchester University Press
4th May 2000
United Kingdom
Tertiary Education
791.430233092
Paperback
176
Width 129mm, Height 198mm
Before the turn of the 20th-century, even before the first cinemas, Georges Melies began making movies. He directed, edited, produced, designed and starred in over 500 films between 1896 and 1912. Elizabeth Ezra explodes several myths about Melies's role in film history. Dismantling the long-held opposition between early film and what we see today, this text locates the roots of modern narrative cinema in Melies's work, identifying techniques of editing and mise-en-scene previously thought to have originated with D.W. Griffith.
"By demonstrating the richness and coherence of this auteur's works, Ezra proves that even 'primitive' films can be illuminated by sensibly applied contemporary theory. This critical explication gives Ezra's study the edge..." -- "Choice"
Elizabeth Ezra teaches in the French Department at the University of Stirling