A Trip To The Moon [1902]

Ah, science fiction.

Wait, let me rephrase that: Ah, science fiction/fantasy!

It should have been clear from my introduction to this blog (and well, the header at the top of this page) that eventually I would be doing a post on this movie and being that I have been rather lazy lately and haven't updated in a little while, I thought it would be perfect to do this movie now. Because it's only about 9 minutes long. Yep.

So my pre-picture-plot-posting topic for today is about the delicate difference between science fiction and fantasy because I have an English degree which means I can be a real jerk when it comes to using terms correctly. To make things clear: there is a difference and many movies you can think of probably fall under both categories.

To preface this, I just finished watching Inception [2010] with my brother which is a really solid example of a movie that is science fiction but not fantasy. The world of the movie is exactly the same as ours with the one little exception of there being this strange piece of technology that because of its creation has spawned a multitude of jobs, interests, and problems that would otherwise not exist. Take out the dream machine and you have reality as it is now. Anything fantastic happens within the confides of a dream and therefore reality is preserved as being what it establishes itself to be: our world with a dream machine.

On the opposite end of the spectrum would be a movie like any Alice in Wonderland film. The world Alice is in is fantasy but there is nothing bound by reality's established rules of science or any kind of scientific advancement that affects a reality the view is familiar with.

As I said most movies are a combination of both but sometimes it can be hard to tell, particularly if the movie starts out seeming firmly ground in science fiction and then introduces fantasy elements. One such movie I can think of like this is Total Recall [1990]. The movie starts off with the advanced technology one would see in any other science fiction movie and then after Arnold Schwarzenegger arrives on Mars, the movie brings in other life forms.

The one general way to turn sci-fi into sci-fi/fantasy: Just add aliens.

You can even break down common elements of either into categories:

Robots: Science Fiction

Time Travel: Science Fiction

Time Travel via Time Lord: Science Fiction/Fantasy

Another World Like Ours: Fantasy

Space Travel: Science Fiction

Space Travel With Aliens: Science Fiction/Fantasy

Mind Fucking Tech: Science Fiction

Vampires/Werewolves/Mermaids/Etc.: Fantasy

Talking Animals: Fantasy

Alchemy: About 85% Science Fiction and 15% Fantasy (if done right)

One of the only exceptions to this general outline that I can think of is any Michael Bay movie which generally hops over what should be somewhat science fiction and goes straight to fantasy. Although this is not because of any stylistic choice; he just happens to ignore all logical laws of science instantly putting himself in fantasy (stuff is loud in space!).

Anyway, Georges Méliès' A Trip To The Moon (or: Le Voyage dans la lune) was the first science fiction (science fiction/fantasy) film ever made. Supposedly it's about 14 minutes if you watch it at the speed they would have watched it back in 1902. For me it was about 10 minutes.

There are also two different background tracks that I've heard to the movie: one is the expected musical track that you hear with silent movies and the other is that of a narrator over a softer musical track explaining what is going on. At the time, narrators were used over music. Either one is fine and I didn't really find there to be much of a difference between the two but this was obviously in a time before movies that dialogue cards to move plot along so that might affect your personal preference.

Other fun facts about this movie:

* Méliès wanted to profit off the film but copies were made and distributed, leading him to become bankrupt.

* This movie seems to have a some steampunk presence to it which would put it at one of the few steampunk-inspired works that were created in the era itself. (Although 1901-1910 is the Edwardian era, not the Victorian but steampunk generally covers both up until about the 1920s when dieselpunk takes over; it's a rather thin line sometimes, particularly in the 1910s).

* Apparently the movie is supposed to end with the astronomers return to Earth and a parade in their honor but the scene was lost. Apparently, they found the complete version of the film in a BARN in 2002 and it had been entirely hand colored. Supposedly the release is out there but I have yet to actually see it.
This is not the first time I have heard of a missing film turning up many years later. Movies were also not able to be preserved in the way they are now so a lot of films had to be extensively restored. In Japan in 1923 the Great Kanto earthquake destroyed a lot of early Japanese films and people are still finding them in random places (in case you wanted to know that earthquake was a 7.9, less than the recent one at 9.0 but many, many more people died).

* The Smashing Pumpkins' music video for the song "Tonight, Tonight" is based off of this movie and the album art for their album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness also shows strong influence from this film. Although I would not recommend watching the video until the end of my review because it's spoiler-y. Or about as spoiler-y as it can be.





*Also, you can watch this movie in it's entirety on YouTube because it is in the public domain. Considering the quality of my pictures, it would make a lot of sense to do so because you can barely see all the little details that you would see if you actually watch the film.

Anyway, now that we have all that cleared up, on with the show!

And I should warn you, these are going to be the worst looking screenshots I will ever take. It's not me man, it's the 1900s.

Here we see a meeting of wizards astronomers, discussing their upcoming trip to the moon. Now, while I love the look of the set, I cannot understand why these men of science are dressed in pointed hats, don't-lick-your-scars collars, and robes with stars on them. Is this supposed to be a criticism of their upcoming folly? It's clearly not supposed to be realistic but they really look ready to do magic, not science.

Six of the men volunteer for the mission and take off their incredibly silly hats, collars, and robes and exchange them for more reasonable coats and top hats.

Here we see the ship they intend to use. Remember, the moon landing happened in 1969 a whole 67 years after this movie was made. In that time, the logic behind the shape of the ship is rather similar. It looks like a bullet. Good for shooting through the air. Makes sense.

Remember when I said steampunk? This is what I was thinking of in particular.

I wish I knew more about how the actual sets were colored because there is a lot of detail in there to really play up the fact that is going to be in black and white (which makes me really wonder what the colored version looks like). Look in particular at the man's telescope. That has to be painted to have such a shape contrast. But what is it really?

On launch day the ship is put on top of . . . rooftops? Also, the ground crew is made up of women in revealing sailor suits. That's how you know the director was a straight man.

Here one of the astronomers seems to be attempting to serenade all of the crew on the ledge. Ambitious.

The ship's crew climbs into the bullet ship.

The bullet is then loaded into the launching mechanism. Is it too earlier in the history of film to look for phallic imagery? I mean, skanky salior suits. It's not too big a stretch. That's what she said.

Thanks for illustrating my point further, girls.

The bullet comparison continues as the ship is literally SHOT into space. That operator must have impeccable aim. The French army could use him. Or they could just fight with the sailor suit army and there would be a faster win for the Allies in WWI.

The man in the moon. Literally.

There's a dance scene in Moulin Rouge [2001] that references this film as much as the Smashing Pumpkins video above and this shot reminded me of it.

This is the most famous scene from the movie. All I could think was, "Damn, that ship must be HUGE."

Also, doesn't it look like a large soda can? It's a many decades too early reference to humans leaving their junk all over the moon. *gasp* Méliès was psychic!

Somehow being able to sustain life, the astronomers leave the ship and take an excited look around.

At night (I guess?), they roll out their sleeping bags and curl up under the sky and see a shooting star.

Stars with people's faces in them? Am I the only one who finds this really grotesque?

Apparently from the moon, constellations actually look like the figures they represent.

Moon dust storm?

They travel into an Alice in Wonderland cave and look around. Hopefully they avoid the mushrooms. Those things will probably either kill you instantly or make you trip balls forever.

A moon monster appears!

But apparently the moon monsters are made of nitrogen triiodide or something because a little touch with an umbrella makes them explode.

A slew of moon monsters come after them for killing their friends, tie them up, and bring them to the moon king and his court which looks vaguely Aztec.

Of course, having learned that these things are made of the most unstable compounds ever, they easily kill the king and make an escape with many moon monsters still hot on their heels.

In order to escape, they all crowd into the ship and push it over a ledge.

Somehow the ship lands in the ocean. This part truly doesn't make sense to me. Did they fall back to Earth or are there oceans on the moon?

But apparently that's the end. Of course, we know from the complete version that they make it back and have a parade in their honor but I'm still not sure what to think of this ocean confusion.

Anyway, it's a really interesting film and truly amazing considering it was made in 1902 before any film conventions had been established and before cameras were really being used to tell fictional stories.

Go check it out. If you don't like it, you only lost 10 minutes of your time that you probably would have wasted doing nothing anyway.

All Quiet On The Western Front [1930]

So you could say I'm still following a pattern with this choice of movie in some fashion because this movie is from the same year as The Blue Angel but while still being a downer like the last one it:
1.) is not a German movie but an American movie about German kids, directed by Lewis Milestone, a Russian-American.
2.) it doesn't have Emil Jannings in it.
3.) and it is a war movie, a genre which I have not done yet.

I apologize in advance because this entry will not be very funny compared to my previous entries because a movie like this doesn't lend itself to much comedy and I can only go to hell so many times. Instead while I will be doing the usual shot-for-shot format, it will be more to talk about specific portions than every detail of the plot. I also want to talk about the genre of war movies in a general sense.

On a personal note, a good portion of my friends tell me that I need to stop watching war movies (my friend Alex in particular warned me against something called "Generation Kill"). Currently one of my best friends in the world and platonic soul mate (who my family wants me to marry) Adam is in Afghanistan with the U.S. Marine Corps. This should mean that I don't want to watch war films but for some reason, it doesn't. It could be that he's only been gone less than a month so I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around reality or that there's a disconnect in my mind between a war movie and the fact that he's actually in a war. I don't know. Either way, I'm apparently still watching war movies and I'm dealing with everything okay (with the exception of one nightmare so far; I'll keep a tally).

So, war movies.

Technically one of the first fictional movies that can fall into the war genre is Birth of a Nation [1915] which is, in a word, difficult to watch. It's about four hours long and, well, racially insensitive? I'm not quite sure how to put it appropriately unless you have seen it. It depicts the Civil War in a manner more reflective of WWI which was going on at the time.

There were a few other significant war movies of the silent era that were fictional and some that were more of the nonfiction, propaganda sort but when it comes to talkies, All Quiet On The Western Front was really the big front runner of the idea that war is not something to be glorified taking a cue from the silent film The Big Parade [1926] a few years earlier. To be honest, this is probably one of the earliest war movies I have seen (other than Birth of a Nation) that was made in the time period constrained by this blog but there are a few others I would like to see, particularly Paths of Glory [1957], Bridge on the River Kwai [1957] and I would like to write about Dr. Strangelove [1964] when I eventually start feeling modern because I love that movie.

Since Western Front many war movies have been released with many different angles to them and taking place during different wars. However there does seem to be one consistent theme with all war movies. War movies, unlike other genres like action and comedy, do not set out with the simple goal of, "This movie is made to entertain the audience." While everyone who works on a movie does so to capture the attention of the audience in some fashion, war movies always set out with a specific message.

In the beginning, war movies generally had two sides:

War is Glorious

and

War is Hell

and for a time they were mutually exclusive. Western Front was made around this time. You could generally divide early war films as being either of the two categories above or a comedy that doesn't try to answer any great question and simply entertains. Propaganda films would always take the side of Glory and comedies, if you had to put them somewhere, would also fall on a distorted version of Glory as well. However, in the wake of WWI there was an equal call for movies that realistically showed the Hell of war to combat the Glory ideals that was being shoved down their throats prior to the war. This kept the two sharply separated.

Somewhere along the line (definitely by the mid-60s but maybe earlier; I'm not a film historian, just a fan), these categories started to blur to the point where a movie could be all three. Now the "war comedy" doesn't really exist (Stripes [1981] is the latest one I can think of), or more likely, it does but through a different filter than what war comedies used to be. Now if there is comedy in a war film it is not seen as a comedy but "a war movie that has some funny parts" (300 [2007] in particular comes to mind; it is also a perfect example of the Glory idea; the freaking tagline is "Prepare for Glory" BUT everyone still dies in the end so there is some Hell).

Either way, the majority of war movies that came out after the time period I write about emphasize War Is Hell and tend to shy away from War Is Glorious unless it is about a war that takes place far in the past, typically in the time where the Western world consisted of tribes and war was always seen as a part of life and a right of passage.

Of course, because the simple idea of War Is Hell can only get you so far when the idea has been around since 1926, war movies started having to come up with their own unique ways of ending that simple sentence in a more specific manner:

War Is _________.

As I mentioned before, I have seen a good amount of war movies. I'm not a connoisseur but I try and I can try to fill in this sentence for some movies.

Dr. Strangelove [1964]:
War is the result of misplaced masculinity and libido.

Apocalypse Now [1979]:
War is an uncivilized retreat to our animalistic nature.

Full Metal Jacket [1987]:
War is conducted through brainwashing out one's humanity.

Saving Private Ryan [1998]:
War is rarely but occasionally merciful.

Flags Of Our Fathers [2006]:
War is misinterpreted and used as a tool by those who don't fight.

Letters From Iwo Jima [2006]:
War is a win for you but a lose for the other side who are merely people like you.

The Hurt Locker [2009]:
War is a drug.

And so on.

Now back to All Quiet On The Western Front specifically. Considering the fact that this movie was made in 1930 and has since had many war films following its traditions and ideas, I was legitimately surprised at how many scenes in this movie were really emotionally affecting and even unique to compare to my prior viewing experiences. That's a movie that stands the test of time right there. When you can see a movie 80 years after it was made and after seeing 1158 other movies in your life (yes, I keep count) and still have it surprise you, that's something.

(Side Note: If the links to TV Tropes were not clear enough I could give you some musical examples. For War Is Glorious listen to "Glory" from the musical Pippin and "The Soldering Life" by The Decemberists. For War Is Hell try "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath or any war-themed song by Metallica. For a combination of both try "Stand To Attention" by Bitter Ruin or for a satirical combo try "War Song" from Threepenny Opera.)

On with the show.

In the opening scene the viewer is treated to the civilian's idea of being a soldier as a bunch of troops march proudly through town while everyone greats and honors them for their sacrifice. Keep in mind that this is the beginning of WWI, 1914 so there currently are no War Is Hell accounts and if there are, they are considered incongruous with the War Is Glorious ideas that are prevalent and shown through "real life" scenes like this.

"This is what we must do: strike with all our power, use every ounce of strength to win victory before the end of the year."

Here we have Kantorek, a German high school teacher (who I can only assume teaches Greek based on the chalkboard behind him). Amid all the celebration for the troops outside, he gives a passionate speech about the merits of fighting for the Fatherland with clearly disillusioned ideas about how long a war lasts and what it really entailed.

Equally as ignorant, the boys fantasize about what it would be like to be a soldier, only contemplating the effects of a return to their homes and not the war itself. Here a boy imagined his father's proud expression at seeing his son in uniform.

Here a boy imagines being the head of a parade for the returning troops with a girl on each arm.

Thoroughly convinced, the boys all leap up in joy and decide to enlist instead of finishing school properly and the teacher is overjoyed with his success because he won't have any more students to teach so his work is over. Sorry. Had to make a joke.

"Anything you say, general."

On the way to basic training, the boys laugh and joke.

Perhaps I am too American or something but this just doesn't seem like something you would do with your friends.

I don't usually see such a display of homosexual behavior in the military outside of an Inglourious Basterds or Fullmetal Alchemist slash fanfiction. Last joke. I swear.

The boys are amused to find that their drill sergeant is their postman and they try to talk casually with him and joke around but he will not have any of it.

They go through training which consists mostly of marching with some minor rolling in mud; clearly not sufficient training for a war.

The boys get revenge on the postman one night when he stumbles back to camp drunk and they throw a blanket over his head and wack him on the bum with sticks. This shows their immaturity and misbehavior that remains unaltered by the training. Clearly he was not like the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket.

After being shipped out to the war with such minimal training, they find themselves in over their heads as one of the recruits dies before they even get to their post.

At the post populated by older, more experienced soldiers (Katczinsky, Detering, Westhus, and Tjaden) they learn that food is scarce and they must pay for it with cigarettes and soap because money is useless.

Kemmerich: "He's dead!... He's dead!"
Katczinsky: "Why did you risk your life bringin' him in?"
Kemmerich: "But it's Behn! My friend!"
Katczinsky: "He's a corpse - no matter who it is... Now, don't any of you ever do that again!"

One of the boys is shot down while they are setting up camp and they quickly learn the value of human life out on the front.

Kemmerich, after the traumatizing experience earlier starts having nightmares and muttering to himself.

In a panic, he tries to escape the trench only to be shot and rushed to the hospital.

This right there is the image that stays with me from this movie. Outside of the gruesome aspect of it, there are so many other things that I consider looking at it including both the fact that this is a movie effect in 1930 and the symbolism here.

After an attack from the French, the company reports at mealtime where the cook refuses to serve them until the whole company has showed up only to find that what was once a company of 150 men has been reduced to 80. The remaining soldiers rejoice at the prospect of double portions.

"We're the Second Company and if only half of us get back, that's our good luck. Come on, dish it out!"

Tjaden: "Well. how do they start a war?"
Kropp: "Well, one country offends another."
Tjaden: "How could one country offend another? You mean there's a mountain over in Germany gets mad at a field over in France?"

Over lunch they have a not-so-serious discussion about war.

During a visit to the injured Kemmerich, he complains about his foot hurting only to have Muller let slip that his leg has been amputated.

Insensitively Muller comments on the quality of Kemmerich's boots and asks if he can have them since Kemmerich won't be walking around anymore.

All the boys soon leave except for Paul who tries to make Kemmerich feel better by reminding him that he will be sent home now only to have Kemmerich die after telling Paul that Muller can have his boots.

Later during another attack from the French, Paul ends up stabbing a French soldier with his knife.

Paul is stuck in the area with the soldier who is dying and he tries to help him by giving him water to drink and looking after him.

"You won't die! They're only little wounds! You'll get home! You'll be alright! You'll get home long before I do!"

As and when the man eventually dies, Paul begs him for forgiveness for what he had done.

"I'll write your wife! I'll write to her! I promise she'll not want for anything."

Paul promises the corpse.

At a bar, the boys talk about girls as military men often do.

They meet a few French girls who they spend the night with in a brief moment of happiness.

Paul is sent to the hospital after an attack where Kropp and an older man are recovering.

After being warned about a room no one comes back from by the older soldier, Paul is then wheeled into the room screaming about how he will return to the regular room and be okay.

Unable to tell Kropp his leg has been amputated the older soldier tries to distract him by telling him that he looks fine.

No words.

Paul returns home on leave to find that his mother is ill and that he cannot talk about what he has been through.

Paul goes back to the teacher that encouraged them all to join the the first place. The teacher is proud and tells him to tell the class what his experience with war was like only to have him initially reply with, "We live in the trenches out there. We fight. We try not to be killed, but sometimes we are. That's all."

Dissatisfied with his answer, the teacher pushes him to say more about the glory and pride of war to which Paul snaps saying instead, "We used to think you knew. The first bombardment taught us better. It's dirty and painful to die for your country. When it comes to dying for your country it's better not to die at all! There are millions out there dying for their countries, and what good is it?"

Unable to hand the pressures of being soldier in a civilian world where no one understands, he cuts his leave short saying he wants to find Katczinsky, one of the bitter, older soldiers who taught him how to survive and the only one of his original group left.

"It's not home back there anymore. All I could think was, I can't wait to get back home and see Kat again."

They are soon attacked while talking and Kat is injured so Paul carries him to the medic's tent while talking about how everything is going to be fine and they are going to remain friends after the war is over.

Upon arriving in the tent, the medics point out that Kat is dead and carelessly return to their card game while Paul solemnly leaves.
Note the scene composition.

Back in the trench, Paul sees a butterfly perched near him and reached out to touch it.

And he finds his end in an act of hope.

So what is there left to say on this?

It is a great movie.

Kind of a day-ruiner.

But I like that in a film.