Cinderella or the Glass Slipper
Cinderella or the Glass Slipper | |
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Directed by | Pathé Frères |
Release date |
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Country | France |
Language | Silent |
Cinderella or the Glass Slipper (French: Cendrillon ou la Pantoufle merveilleuse) is a 1913 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès, based on the fairy tale by Charles Perrault.
Production
Méliès had previously adapted Cinderella thirteen years earlier, in an 1899 film which had been his first big success.[1] The 1913 Cinderella can be considered a remake of the earlier film, but both are derived from the original Perrault tale.[2]
The film was made in the summer and autumn of 1912.[3] Méliès himself plays the Prince's messenger who searches for the owner of the glass slipper.[4] His daughter, Georgette Méliès, was likely one of the two camera operators (each of Méliès's films from 1902 onward was shot with two cameras simultaneously for international distribution).[5]
Like all of the other films Méliès made in 1911 and 1912, Cinderella was made under the supervision of
In 1944, Méliès's widow Jehanne d'Alcy claimed to the Cinémathèque française that Zecca had "massacred" the film, cutting out the best scenes, including one in which pumpkins race each other across a garden.[6] D'Alcy asserted that the editing was sabotage intended to ruin Méliès's career. This charge against Zecca was never proven,[4] though the abrupt linear edits do suggest that Zecca's work extended to a reedit of the entire film.[6]
Release and reception
According to advertisements published in December 1912, the film scheduled for release on 3 January 1913.[8] It was advertised as a féerie en 2 parties et 30 tableaux, d'après le chef-d'œuvre de Charles Perrault.[9] In sharp contrast to Méliès's 1899 version, the 1913 film was not a success with audiences and exhibitors, at least in part because Méliès's theatrical style had fallen out of fashion in the intervening years.[10]
In a 1979 book on Méliès, film scholar John Frazer commented that although Zecca's interference can clearly be discerned, "the remaining film is an agreeable example of Méliès's art with a few particularly fine effects."[10] In a 2010 book on fairy-tale films, folklorist Jack Zipes criticized the film for leaning too heavily into melodrama and special effects, leading to some "boring scenes that had little comic relief", but also cited numerous features of interest, including the dramatic treatment of the stepsisters' abuse of Cinderella, the fairies' transformations, and elaborate business involving the glass slipper.[11]
Of the two original edited
References
- ^ Malthête & Mannoni 2008, p. 106.
- ^ Essai 1981, p. 353.
- ^ Malthête & Mannoni 2008, p. 31.
- ^ a b c d e Frazer 1979, p. 219.
- ^ a b c Malthête 2016.
- ^ a b c d Essai 1981, p. 356.
- ^ Frazer 1979, p. 218.
- ^ Malthête & Mannoni 2008, p. 29.
- ^ Malthête & Mannoni 2008, p. 287. Literal English translation: "féerie in two parts and thirty scenes, based on Charles Perrault's masterpiece."
- ^ a b Frazer 1979, p. 220.
- ^ Zipes 2010, pp. 40–41.
- ^ a b Capron 2022.
Works cited
- Capron, Tania (2022-09-05), "Restaurations des films de Georges Méliès, la fantaisie mise en musique", Cinematheque.fr, Cinémathèque Française
- Essai de reconstitution du catalogue français de la Star-Film; suivi d'une analyse catalographique des films de Georges Méliès recensés en France, Bois d'Arcy: Service des archives du film du Centre national de la cinématographie, 1981, OCLC 10506429
- Frazer, John (1979), Artificially Arranged Scenes: The Films of Georges Méliès, Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., ISBN 0816183686
- Malthête, Jacques; Mannoni, Laurent (2008), L'oeuvre de Georges Méliès, Paris: Éditions de La Martinière, ISBN 9782732437323
- Malthête, Jacques (2016), "Georgette Méliès", in Gaines, Jane; Vatsal, Radha; Dall'Asta, Monica (eds.), Women Film Pioneers Project, Center for Digital Research and Scholarship, Columbia University Libraries
- Zipes, Jack (2010), The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films, New York: Routledge, ISBN 9781135853952
External links
- Cinderella or the Glass Slipper at IMDb