Christ Walking on the Water
| Christ Walking on the Water | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Georges Méliès |
| Based on | New Testament, Mark 6:45-52 |
Production company | |
Release date |
|
Running time | 20 meters[1] |
| Country | France |
| Language | Silent |
Christ Walking on the Water (French: Le Christ marchant sur les flots) is an 1899 French silent trick film directed by Georges Méliès.
Production
[edit]In the summer of 1899, Georges Méliès and his family took a vacation on the coast of Normandy. During the vacation, Méliès made three short actuality films: Bird's-Eye View of St. Helier (Jersey), Steamer Entering the Harbor of Jersey, and Passengers Landing at Harbor of Granville. He also filmed the open sea, to use as a backdrop for multiple exposure effects for two fiction films: Neptune and Amphitrite and Christ Walking on the Water.[2]
Christ Walking on the Water was based on the story told in Mark 6:45-52.[3] The film was Méliès's second film based on religious themes; the first was The Temptation of Saint Anthony, made the previous year.[4]
Themes
[edit]The film depicted Christ in a simple storytelling fashion, emphasizing his magician-like qualities and the dramatic effect of the superhuman miracle. Méliès was not the only early filmmaker to favor this uncomplicated Christology; the religious films of the Lumière brothers use a similarly straightforward approach.[3]
Release and reception
[edit]The film was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 204 in its catalogues, where it was advertised with the parenthetical subtitle exécuté sur mer véritable.[1] It may have influenced Ferdinand Zecca's 1907 film La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, which features a similar scene of Christ walking on water.[5]
Christ Walking on the Water is currently presumed lost.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Malthête, Jacques; Mannoni, Laurent (2008), L'oeuvre de Georges Méliès, Paris: Éditions de La Martinière, p. 340
- ^ Malthête & Mannoni 2008, p. 26
- ^ a b Michalczyk, John J. (1985), "La Bible et le cinéma", in Savart, Claude; Aletti, Jean Noël (eds.), Le Monde contemporain et la Bible, Paris: Beauchesne, p. 323
- ^ Costa, Antonio (1997), "Pour une interprétation iconologique du cinéma de Méliès: 'vues dites à transformations' et trucages", in Malthête, Jacques; Marie, Michel (eds.), Georges Méliès, l'illusionniste fin de siècle?: actes du colloque de Cerisy-la-Salle, 13–22 août 1996, Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne nouvelle, p. 178
- ^ Friesen, Dwight H., "La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Pathé-Frères, 1907): The Preservation and Transformation of Zecca's Passion", in Shepherd, David J. (ed.), The Silents of Jesus in the Cinema (1897–1927), New York: Routledge, p. 93
External links
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