Melies Boots: Footwear and Film Manufacturing in Second Industrial Revolution Paris

George Méliès was a maker of deluxe French footwear, an illusionist, and a caricaturist before becoming the father of cinematic special effects. Solomon's book explores Méliès's unpublished drawings, published caricatures, the role of laughter in his magic theater productions, and the constituent elements of the cinéaste's profession. It also reveals Méliès's connections to the Incohérents, a group of ephemeral artists from the 1880s, demonstrating the group's relevance for Méliès, early cinema, and modernity.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 30 September 2022
Publisher: The University of Michigan Press

George Méliès, a maker of deluxe French footwear, an illusionist, and a caricaturist, was the father of cinematic special effects. His career during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, along with the larger cultural and historical contexts in which he operated, shaped his cinematic oeuvre. Solomon examines Méliès' unpublished drawings and published caricatures, the role of laughter in his magic theater productions, and the constituent elements of what Méliès called the new profession of the cinéaste. The book also reveals Méliès' connections to the Incohérents, a group of ephemeral artists from the 1880s, demonstrating the group's relevance for Méliès, early cinema, and modernity. By positioning Méliès in relation to the material culture of his time, Solomon demonstrates that Méliès' work was expressive of a distinctly modern, and modernist, sensibility that appeared in France during the 1880s in the wake of the Second Industrial Revolution.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780472055586