Early cinemas relationship to reality initially provided images that reflected reality. The Lumiere brothers and Edison used moving images that reflected the world in front of them. However, these were still a presentation of an illusion – a celluloid moving person, isn’t a real moving person in front of you. Although this does raise the question, how do we know that? What is reality, how do we perceive reality? Without going into a phenomenological argument, the idea of perceived reality and illusion intrigues me and one that is played out as a central concept in the work of Melies.
In the “Black Imp” and “A trip to the Moon”, Melies presents a recognition of cinematic illusion, through the notion of “trickery”. He achieves this not only through his knowledge as a magician, but through camera use, and editing. That to make movement believable, you have to stop the movement – through both two shots in the same frame and stop motion. Through his “tirkcery”, Melies frees the moving image from the idea of filming the real world, into the world of imagination. Not a representation, but the creation of a world in and of itself- the cinematic world, allowing him to create tricks that can only be achieved on film. (I find these ideas interesting as it relates to painting. To make a painting believable, we have to stop motion to present an illusion that may or may not relate to the world in front of us)
