“Das ist keine Magiiie, das ist Photographiiie!” (It is not magic, it’s photography!), cries Therese Giehse as a Biedermeier fairground barker in The Bartered Bride by Max Ophüls. Animated photography however, e.g. cinema, certainly is magic, technically speaking. It combines the full range of classical effects and illusions – starting with making things appear and disappear – with the high art of make-believe. The ur-trick of all film magic is editing, meaning cutting and splicing. Gaston Velle’s vues fantasmagoriques are longer than standard “vues Lumière”, since they are made up of several spliced shots.
The range and quality of Velle’s productions for Pathé is amazing from the very start. Japonaiseries still work perfectly on an audience 112 years later, making us wonder how it was done; Les Dévaliseurs nocturnes enchants us with shadow plays and bicycle pursuits, Les Effets de la foudre with brilliantly done rain and lightning in animation. In Cagliostro, the magic performed by the protagonist again has deep ties to that of a cinematographer or, more precisely, a projectionist, since he screens moving images (of Marie Antoinette’s future); Velle contributed the special effects and tricks to de Morlhon’s film.

Mariann Lewinsky