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The Human Pyramid (1899 film)

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The Human Pyramid
Directed byGeorges Méliès
StarringGeorges Méliès
Production
company
Release date
  • 1899 (1899)
Running time
1 minute
CountryFrance
LanguageSilent

The Human Pyramid (French: La Pyramide de Triboulet, "Triboulet's Pyramid") is an 1899 French silent trick film by Georges Méliès.

Plot

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In an ornate room, the jester Triboulet magically summons nine men from a trunk, seats them in levels forming a pyramid, and turns them into women in court dress.

Release

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Méliès acts in the film as Triboulet, famously the jester for the French kings Louis XII and Francis I.[1] He made another film featuring Triboulet, The King and the Jester, in 1907.[2] The Human Pyramid was sold by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 218 in its catalogues, where it was advertised as a tableau sensationnel pour coloris ("a sensational scene for hand-coloring").[1]

Méliès burned all the surviving original camera negatives of his films toward the end of his life, and about three-fifths of his output is presumed lost. The Human Pyramid was among the lost films until 2007, when a copy was identified and restored by the Filmoteca de Catalunya.[3]

References

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  1. ^ a b Malthête, Jacques; Mannoni, Laurent (2008), L'oeuvre de Georges Méliès, Paris: Éditions de La Martinière, p. 101, ISBN 9782732437323
  2. ^ Malthête & Mannoni, p. 352.
  3. ^ "La Filmoteca de Catalunya rescata quatre pel·lícules de Méliès que es donaven per perdudes", Vilaweb (in Catalan), 27 September 2007, retrieved 5 December 2014
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