Previous posts on this site explored the inspirations that early silent hand coloured and stencilled films may provide to fashion designers.
At the beginning of December, The Guardian also published on its site a lovely example of such films, the four-minute short "Le Faune" (The Fairies and the Faun, 1908) shot by the Pathé Brothers and accompanied by modern music composed and performed by Icelandic cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir.
The short was published to celebrate the BFI release of the DVD entitled “Fairy Tales: Early Colour Stencil from Pathé” (£19.99).
This is actually a good option for a present for cinema fans, but also for artists and fashion designers.
Fairy films became very popular at the beginning of the 1900s thanks to the Pathé Frères company.
Though in our digital times some of them may not seem that adventurous especially plot-wise and though some themes often tend to come back (wicked beings, kidnapped maidens, dancing girls, mythical beings and people morphing into butterflies and insects in enchanted and mysterious woods), the true magic of these films does not stand in the story they tell, but in their visual power.
The special effects in these shorts were created through stage illusions, trick photography and striking chromatic juxtapositions of primary shades that were usually hand or stencil coloured by hundreds of women at Pathé Frères' colouring factory.
Thanks to the success of Martin Scorsese's Hugo that celebrated French filmmaker Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès as a "cinemagician", 2012 marked a sort of rediscovery moment for hand-coloured films and this DVD offers a good selection of twenty genuine gems including "La Peine du talion" (Tit for Tat, 1906) by Gaston Velle, "Le spectre rouge" (The Red Spectre, 1907) directed by Segundo de Chomón and Ferdinand Zecca in the tradition of Méliès, Zecca's "Ali Baba et les quarante voleurs" (Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, 1902) and "Le Scarabée d'or" (The Golden Beetle, 1907) and Segundo de Chomón's "L'Antre de la sorcière" (The Bewitched Shepherd, 1905).
The films collected in this DVD - accompanied by an illustrated booklet with introductory essay by the BFI's silent film curator Bryony Dixon - are set to commissioned music by contemporary artists on British independent label Touch, including Chris Watson, Christian Fennesz, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Ryoji Ikeda, Philip Jeck, and BJ Nilsen amongst others, all using eclectic sounds and effects to provide new visual soundscapes for these magical features.
DVD extras include Georges Méliès' "Barbe-blue" (1901), "Au Pays de l'or" (1908) and "Little Red Riding Hood" (1922) by British pioneer animator Ernest John Anson Dyer.
Since Christmas is almost here I'm going to leave you with this starry image taken from a silent film not included in this DVD, early sci-fi story "Voyage autour d'une étoile" (A Voyage Around a Star, 1906) by Gaston Velle.
The film told the story of eccentric astronomer Nigadimus taking a trip to the star he has fallen in love with in a gigantic soap bubble. Lovely plot, don't you think so?
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Comments