A Spiritualist Photographer (1903)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

A very down to earth example of Melies skill. He is a photographer who has developed a method of taking photos of people by having them stand in front of a screen. He does this with a young woman (who else?) who becomes absorbed into the photo. But don't despair. Melies always brings them back alive. About average for special effects, especially with Melies previous moment.

Georges Méliès introduces his "great novelty" for this film, "The Spiritualist Photographer", with two cards explaining the effect. One card is in the producer's native French and the other is in English, which is an indication of his films' cross-Atlantic appeal and distribution at the time. The novelty in this film is a "dissolving effect obtained without black background". According to John Frazer ("Artifically Arranged Scenes"), to accomplish the lapse dissolve transformation on white background, Méliès's cameraman had to open the lens wide to make the image disappear, instead of closing the lens in the case of using a black background. The camera was also masked to separate the transformation exposure from the exposure of the image outside the portrait. Barry Salt ("Film Style & Technology: History & Analysis") says these white-background superimpositions were done with a printer. Frazer called this "the last new trick devised by Méliès". Indeed, most of the cinema magician's tricks throughout his oeuvre were substitution-splices and superimpositions, which he had learned and used in films as early as 1896 and 1897. Most of the other tricks, such as the one here, were variations of those two main techniques. Méliès repeated this particular trick in "The Living Playing Cards" (Les cartes vivantes)(1904) and other films.Besides the technical and historical interest, "The Spiritualist Photographer" is a rather average trick film from Méliès. Some of his other trick films, including: "The Four Troublesome Heads", "The Astronomer's Dream" (both 1898), "The Mysterious Portrait" (1899), "The One-Man Band" (1900), "The Man with the Rubber Head" and "The Magic Lantern", in addition to the narrative féeries (fairy films), are superior for their unique or amusing presentations of the novel effects. Reportedly, the act in this film of a person turned into a portrait and then brought back to life was adapted from magician David Devant's illusion "The Artist's Dream" (Frazer).

Spiritualistic Photographer (1903) ** 1/2 (out of 4) aka La Portrait Spirite A one trick film from the master filmmaker has Melies playing a photographer/magician who has a magic canvas that allows him to stand a person in front of it and then their image appears as a drawing. This film runs just over two-minutes and really doesn't have too much going for it, although it remains interesting throughout thanks in large part to the short running time. The special effect is nicely done but it's nothing we haven't already seen from the director in previous films so I doubt anyone is going to be too thrilled by what they see here. Melies is his usual energetic self but the female used in the film is pretty bland.

This Georges Méliès feature showcases an assortment of his trademark visual effects, in a simple but pleasant and fairly amusing setting. Méliès produced so many of these short features that sometimes you wonder how he never ran out of ideas. While he did often re-use the same camera tricks with different settings and details, he also seemed to keep coming up with original ideas as well. That is the case here, as some of the effects created by the "Spiritualist Photographer" are pretty creative.The movie starts out with a stage show, as do a good number of Méliès features. This one features a performer advertising a new kind of photography, using a young girl as a subject. There is a good variety of camera effects, and they come in quick succession, almost creating their own narrative of sorts.The visuals are clever and well-crafted, and entertaining as well. This one should be worthwhile for anyone who enjoys Méliès's movies.