A Trip to the Moon

A Trip to the Moon (1902) is pioneering French film-maker Georges Méliès’ most famous work. It tells the tale of six astronomers who build a rocket, land on the moon and meet giant mushrooms and half-man half-insect moon-dwellers called Selenites. Méliès loosely based his narrative on Jules Verne’s 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon and H.G. Wells’ 1901 tale, The First Men in the Moon.

The importance of the film lies in its early special effects. Méliès trained as a magician and illusionist and, combining this with his skill and ingenuity, pioneered a host of special effects, including slow motion photography, dissolves and stop-motion animation. His image of a space capsule landing in the eye of the Man in the Moon is one of the most recognised images in cinema. Méliès wrote the script, directed, produced, photographed and starred in the film. He was also responsible for the film’s scenery and wardrobe. He spared no expense, hiring acrobats from the Folies Bergères to portray the Selenites. The movie cost him the equivalent of one million US dollars - a fortune at the time. He intended to distribute it in the US but it was pirated by Thomas Edison’s film technicians.

The film was a hit but Méliès didn’t earn a penny from it and eventually went bankrupt. His film, however, went down in the annals of history.