Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1124770
18 CINEMONTAGE / Q2 2019 by Edward Landler "I was the one who successively came up with all the so- called 'mysterious' cinematographic techniques. The cinematographers of artificially arranged scenes have all more or less followed the path I laid down." — Georges Méliès, "Les Vues Cinématographiques: Causerie (Cinematographic Views: An Informal Lecture)," L'Annuaire Général et International de la Photographie (The General and International Annual of Photography), 1907 B y the time film pioneer Georges Méliès made this only slightly exaggerated claim, the making and exhibition of narrative film was establishing itself as a business separate from the variety stage and lecture circuit. As more people visited storefront theatres to see moving picture stories, they watched the art and craft of editing evolving on screens right before their eyes. Within the next 10 years, the emergence of feature-length films gave birth to an entertainment industry boom and, soon after, lavish movie palaces. Before 1900, however, editing — the selection, timing and arrangement of shots to draw attention from image to image within a scene, and to achieve continuity from scene to scene — was just barely imagined. Throughout the 1890s, virtually all films exhibited were uncut, single-camera setup shots that were about a minute in length. Having made over 200 such pieces between 1896 and 1899, Méliès sought to expand these limited tableaux vivants (living pictures) into longer films and richer stories. He was among the first to imagine and contrive what would become editing and post-production in movie storytelling. During the spring of 1899, 120 years ago, Méliès filmed and exhibited Le Portrait Mystérieux (The Mysterious Portrait), advertised in his Complete Catalogue of Genuine and Original "Star" Films (1905) as "une grande nouveauté photographique" (a grand photographic novelty). It was the first film to demonstrate what a "cut" can do within a scene. It portrays a primitive cut — substituting one image with another — within a picture frame placed in the movie's single, uncut, continuous master shot. In this short movie, the bald, bearded Méliès himself — gesturing like the CONTINUED ON PAGE 20 THIS QUARTER IN FILM HISTORY When Editing Began The Cut that Launched a Filmmaking Craft Georges Méliès in the late 1800s. Photofest