Summoning the Spirits (French: Évocation spirite) is an 1899 French silent trick film by Georges Méliès.

Summoning the Spirits
Directed byGeorges Méliès
StarringGeorges Méliès
Production
company
Release date
  • 1899 (1899)
CountryFrance
LanguageSilent

Plot

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A magician hangs a wreath in the air and makes a grotesque face appear inside it. He then replaces it with a woman's face, and finally with a copy of his own face.

Release and survival

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Méliès himself plays the magician in the film.[1][2] Summoning the Spirits was sold by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 205 in its catalogues, where it was advertised as a scène à transformations.[2]

Méliès burned all the surviving original camera negatives of his films toward the end of his life, and about three-fifths of his output is presumed lost. Summoning the Spirits was among the lost films until 2007, when a copy was identified and restored by the Filmoteca de Catalunya.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b "La Filmoteca de Catalunya rescata quatre pel·lícules de Méliès que es donaven per perdudes", Vilaweb (in Catalan), 27 September 2007, retrieved 5 December 2014
  2. ^ a b Malthête, Jacques; Mannoni, Laurent (2008), L'oeuvre de Georges Méliès, Paris: Éditions de La Martinière, p. 96, ISBN 9782732437323
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