Summoning the Spirits
Summoning the Spirits | |
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Directed by | Georges Méliès |
Starring | Georges Méliès |
Production company | |
Release date |
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Country | France |
Language | Silent |
Summoning the Spirits (French: Évocation spirite) is an 1899 French silent trick film by Georges Méliès.
Plot
A magician hangs a wreath in the air and makes a grotesque face appear inside it. He then replaces it with a woman's face, and finally with a copy of his own face.
Release and survival
Méliès himself plays the magician in the film.[1][2] Summoning the Spirits was sold by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 205 in its catalogues, where it was advertised as a scène à transformations.[2]
Méliès burned all the surviving original camera negatives of his films toward the end of his life, and about three-fifths of his output is presumed lost. Summoning the Spirits was among the lost films until 2007, when a copy was identified and restored by the Filmoteca de Catalunya.[1]
References
- ^ a b "La Filmoteca de Catalunya rescata quatre pel·lícules de Méliès que es donaven per perdudes", Vilaweb (in Catalan), 27 September 2007, retrieved 5 December 2014
- ^ a b Malthête, Jacques; Mannoni, Laurent (2008), L'oeuvre de Georges Méliès, Paris: Éditions de La Martinière, p. 96, ISBN 9782732437323