The Inventor Crazybrains and His Wonderful Airship
| The Inventor Crazybrains and His Wonderful Airship | |
|---|---|
 The inventor Crazybrains dreams of his airship in a frame from the film | |
| Directed by | Georges Méliès |
| Starring | Georges Méliès |
Production company | |
Release date |
|
| Country | France |
| Language | Silent |
Le Dirigeable fantastique ou le Cauchemar d'un inventeur, released in the US as The Inventor Crazybrains and His Wonderful Airship and in the UK as Fantastical Air Ship, is a 1905 French short silent film directed by Georges Méliès. The film was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 786–788 in its catalogues.
Plot
[edit]In his ramshackle lodgings, decorated with designs of famous airships of the past, the inventor Crazybrains dances with glee at having designed a new dirigible. When he takes a nap, impish figures appear in his room, gleefully wreaking havoc with his papers before giving way to a vision of Crazybrains's new airship rising aloft above the rooftops. The airship travels through the clouds, and women reclining in painterly positions appear in the sky. Suddenly a fireball strikes the airship, and it explodes with much fire and smoke as the impish figures reappear. Crazybrains, waking up from his nightmare, tears around his room in a frenzy, knocking the plans for the airship down to the floor.
Themes
[edit]Le Dirigeable fantastique is one of numerous Méliès films, like A Trip to the Moon and The Impossible Voyage, featuring a comically eccentric scientist. As featured by Méliès, the character is connected both to the Faust legend (a favourite theme of the filmmaker's) as well as to the long-lasting film tradition of the mad scientist figure. Similarly parodic depictions of scientific practitioners also feature in other early films, such as the Edison Manufacturing Company's 1910 A Trip to Mars.[1]
Release and survival
[edit]A hand-coloured print of the film, probably from Elisabeth Thuillier's colouring laboratory,[2] survives at the EYE Film Institute Netherlands. It was given a restoration in 1991.[3]
References
[edit]- ^ Haynes, Roslynn D. (2017), From Madman to Crime Fighter: The Scientist in Western Culture, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 187, ISBN 9781421423043
- ^ Yumibe, Joshua (16 July 2015), "The Phantasmagoria of the First Hand-Painted Films", Nautilus, retrieved 20 March 2018
- ^ Gunning, Tom; Yumibe, Joshua; Fossati, Giovanna; Rosen, Jonathon (2015), Fantasia of color in early cinema, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, p. 283
