The film starts with an assembly of astronomers in a large hall that is filled with scientific looking equipment and a telescope that is pointed at the moon. Six “man-servants” bring the astronomers their telescopes. Soon afterwards the professor (played by Méliès) walks into the room and the telescopes instantly transform into stools. The professor then explains his plan for a trip to the moon. He explains the plan visually by drawing a dotted line on a chalkboard between a basketball-looking Earth and the moon. All astronomers approve of the plan except one member who violently opposes. After some arguing the professor responds by throwing his papers and books at the astronomer’s head (there are other attempts at humor like this throughout the film).
Once order is restored, the trip proposed by the professor is voted on and the five remaining astronomers make up their minds to accompany him. The “man-servants” then bring the astronomers some travel suits, and the scene dissolves into a workshop setting.
The next scene shows various artisans all hammering away and working hard on the vessel. The astronomers enter the scene to inspect the progress. While all this is going on, one astronomer falls into a tub of nitric acid (another attempt at humor). The annoyed workers insist that the astronomers go up on the roof to see the casting of the gun that will shoot the shell into space. The workshop scene then dissolves to a roof scene.
On the horizon of the roof scene you can see little houses and chimneys that produce volumes of smoke. The astronomers climb up a ladder a see a little white flag raised. This signals the steel to be poured into the mold for the gun. The mold then emits flames and vapor, and the enthusiastic astronomers rejoice. The scene dissolves to the top of the roofs of the town.
All preparations have been made for the expedition and the shell is ready to receive the travelers. As they arrive they respond to the acclamations of the crowd and enter the shell. Once in, they are pushed into the mouth of the gun by a chorus line of gunners who turn to acknowledge the camera and start waving their hats. The scene dissolves to an oversized gun that is pointed at the moon. Everyone watches as the officer gives the signal to fire. After the fuse is lit smoke shoots out of the tip of the gun. The scene dissolves to a comical face of the moon, which gets closer until the shell lands with a splat in the eye of the moon. This scene dissolves to the shell landing again (which is not unlike the lady getting rescued twice in Life of an American Fireman). The astronomers get out and watch the earth rise on a lunar landscape. As they start to explore, a fiery explosion hits them. The astronomers get tired from their rough trip and go to sleep.
While the astronomers are sleeping stars and comets visit them. The different things in the sky don’t like the voyagers so they order a snowstorm to fall on them. The astronomers wake up frozen and decide, without hesitation, to go into the interior of the moon through a crater, despite the danger. The scene dissolves to a bizarre setting filled with enormous mushrooms. The professor tries to compare the size of the mushrooms with his umbrella when it suddenly takes root and converts to a rapidly growing mushroom.
From the mushrooms comes a moon creature that, after doing some gymnastics, rushes the professor. The professor whacks the moon creature with his umbrella, causing it to go up in a puff of smoke. The astronomers are then chased by numerous moon creatures and are captured. The scene dissolves to the throne room of the king of the moon creatures. The astronomers are brought in with their hands bound. The professor breaks his hands free and attacks the king by throwing him to the ground. With the king vanquished the astronomers run away and the moon creatures give chase. After a brief chase scene the astronomers find their vessel sitting on a ledge. The astronomers get inside while the professor pulls them over the ledge. This causes the shell to fall down to earth and land in the sea. Méliès ends the film after a short underwater scene in which the vessel floats to the surface and gets towed to shore by a steamboat.
Georges Méliès, who as mentioned earlier was a magician by trade, had conceived all his films as a reproduction of theater scenes, but in a fantastic way not possible on stage. He viewed the camera as a stationary person sitting in an audience. This may explain why every scene he shot had the camera fixed in one point, as one would view a stage in a vaudeville theater. Even during the scene where the ship is approaching the moon, the camera remains stationary while the moon is moved toward it. Méliès has also been known to address the camera like a stage performer would address the audience, which often made his films self-reflexive. This happens in A Trip to the Moon when the gunners wave their hats to the camera.
Méliès used a revolutionary studio lighting technique in which he could use sunlight from the sides as well as the top of the studio. He accomplished this by building his own glass wall studio in Montreuil in 1897. “Like Dickinson’s Black Maria, the Montreuil studio relied on sunlight-artificial lighting truly adequate for cinematography was not introduced until 1904-but its glass walls and roof allowed a richer, more fully modeled lighting plan and washed out the top-lit shadows characteristic of earlier studio work. In 1899 Méliès was the first to diffuse, or soften, light by filtering it through by filtering it through cotton sheets or rippled glass…” (Mast & Kawin, p 33)
Each scene in A Trip To the Moon was a single shot that sometimes used stop-motion and multiple-exposure effects. The single shots coupled with an unmoving camera provided the film with a strong likeness to the theater scenes that Méliès was trying to reproduce. The only editing work incorporated into the film was the use of dissolves that bridged all the scenes together, and superimpositions of comets and stars that come while the astronomers sleep.
The set design in A Trip To the Moon was one of the most impressive aspects of the film. Méliès took great pride in his scenes that he designed, plastered and painted himself. Many of the sets had things in the backgrounds that moved. Pulling up the earth and pulling down on the rear part of the lunar crust contrived the scene where the astronomers watch the rising of the earth. In the scene where the astronomers witness the steel being poured into the mold for the gun you can actually see some sort of liquid come down the shoots and into the mold, as well as smoke coming out of the chimney. The underwater scene at the end of the film was completed by placing an aquarium containing lizards and fish in front of the set. Because of the staginess of Méliès sets, he had very limited depth. He tried to make up for it by giving the backdrops deep perspectives, the most striking of which are rooftop scenes and the scene where the gun is fired.
The acting styles in A Trip To the Moon are as far from naturalistic as you can get. This is most evident by the acting of the astronomers. The astronomers are constantly pointing at things and holding their arms up in the air with exaggerated facial expressions. However, this is one film where I don’t see exaggerated acting as a bad thing. This film is supposed to be lively and comedic and the exaggerated acting suits the film well. The costumes and wigs that the actors wear, also designed by Méliès, are elaborate and amusing. The astronomers’ robes at the beginning of the film and the costumes that the moon creatures wear stand out most.
A Trip to the Moon contains many common themes and elements as his other films. All shots in Méliès’ films use the same camera, lighting and editing techniques that I mentioned earlier. Many of his films end with some sort of monster that perform acrobatics and vanish like the moon creatures. Méliès’ has also done several multiple scene films where the plot revolves around people going on an impossible journey.
