Le cake-walk infernal

It seems incredible to me that a filmmaker who was so far ahead of his peers in 1903 could fall so far behind them within the space of a decade. By 1912 or so Melies' career as a film-maker was over and he ended up selling sweets from a street kiosk for a living. And yet this film is so energetic and inventive, it leaves you wishing he hadn't found it so difficult to adapt as the movies evolved.

There's no story to this one as such, just a group of people dancing in various styles against a typically fantastic Melies background which is presumably presumed to be a vision of hell - although the set could easily have been used in Voyage to the Moon. I watched this on YouTube, and the soundtrack was played by a jazz quintet. It's remarkable how well the music suited the visuals and the soundtrack complements the astonishingly lively and kinetic capers on the screen. Definitely worth watching.

The first cinemaphotographers were merely interested in shooting scenes exactly as they happened, resulting in documentaries (or cinéma vérité) that are mainly kept for their pioneer function in film history. Interesting in so far as they allow us to see how people looked over a century ago, they are just what their title describes: a train arriving in a station, people leaving a factory, etc. If you don't want to know what is going to happen in "The unloading of a cart", you better not read the title.

Then came Georges Méliès who waved the train that was 'cinéma vérité' goodbye and chose instead for the wacky path of outlandish fiction. Méliès is not just important because he was a pioneer in film fiction. If you watch his work, you'll have to admit it is so good it has no trouble overclassing films that were shot a generation later. Frankly, you need to see German expressionist films like "Das Cabinett des Dr. Caligari" to watch something equally rich in imagination and imagery.

I forgot who it was, but there was a director who said directing was the easiest job in the world. You let other people do the job (actors, directors of photography, sound engineers, set designers, .) and all you basically have to do is say "action!", "cut!" and eventually "it's a wrap". This too makes Méliès special: he was not just a director, his jobs included author, producer, director and set designer. "Voyage dans la lune" (1902), one of his most famous works, has an incredibly beautiful set. Some of it really reminds you of paintings by Bosch. The story may not the most staggering you've ever heard, it's how it's filmed that makes it special and excellent. A professor and crew are shot out of a giant canon and land on the moon. They're overhappy to have made the trip when they encounter the moon people, creatures that a century later still look more terrifying than the stuff you see on shows like "Buffy". Like the vampires in the teen show Méliès's moon creatures disappear into thin air when they're hit. The scientists run for their life, manage to escape and are welcomed back to Earth as the heroes of the century. The image of the giant bullet shot in the moon's eye didn't accidently make it to myriads of posters and t-shirts. No, it's just a very good example of how beautiful Méliès's works were and are.

But does he need a story to entertain the viewer? No. Take "Le cake-walk infernal", a film he shot a year later. There isn't a real story to tell here, Méliès used a very popular dance at the time and used it as the basis for a film. How would the cake-walk be danced if they knew it in Hell? Méliès himself appears as the demon who jumps out of the cake in the second part of the film and that's where the man goes experimental again. Méliès manages to shoot himself in two parts: a dancing torso, dancing legs and a void in between. By today's standards the trickery isn't too convincing, but you'd have to be of bad will to say it's poorly done. Then you have to think of this short movie being made nearly a century ago and it's then you fully realise Méliès was more than a pioneer, he was a genius. A genius who sometimes told a story and sometimes just went for lavish eye-candy.

There are recurring characters in the Melies canon, and the devil is one of them. Apparently, there is a fixation on what hell would be like and what the devil would look like. I thought the dancing was really fantastic. George's Melies was obviously a multi-talented performer. He was a magician, an actor, director, creator and scene stylist. His closing dance was incredibly addictive. No plot, but has that ever mattered with him?

The summary was NOT meant to be negative--it is a true description of what seems to be happening in this pleasant but not especially remarkable film by that genius of silent cinema, Georges Méliès.

The film was made on a set with sliding backdrops. They are painted up to look like a cave--I assume this is meant to be Hell inside the Earth. And into this cave appear a wide variety of ladies dancing can-can style as well as the Devil himself. It all seems very random--with various characters appearing and disappearing without much story line or reason. Because there is no apparent theme, it all looks like a talent show, of sorts, and is among the poorer films I've seen by Méliès.

Having said this, poor Méliès is still great film work when compared to his contemporaries--even those who were deliberately copying his style and camera tricks. The randomness and ordinariness don't mean this isn't entertaining--but it sure could have used a theme to give it a sense of purpose other than to say "life here in Hell is pretty cool--come join the party"!

Infernal Cake-Walk, The (1903)

*** (out of 4)

aka Le Cake-Walk Infernal

One of Melies best know films, this movie here takes place in Hell where various people and demons do a dance, which includes fire and magic. This here is certainly one of the director's catchiest films as it contains a rather wicked sense of humor as we see all these demons dancing around. The visual look of the film is very nice and the sets used are also very good. There's a great sequence with two demons fighting with fire and another great scene where a demon disappears from the screen. I wouldn't exactly call the dancing in the film good but it is catchy when mixed with everything else going on.