Sounds for the Moon

George Méliès' classic, pioneering 1902 science fiction film Le Voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon) first caught my eye as part of a Bill Nye the Science Guy VHS that I owned as a child, on the subject of the moon. Hardly any of the footage was shown in the episode, but along with the strains of Debussy's Clair de lune played elsewhere in the show, it found a recess in my mind and never left. I first saw the entire 14 minute film in high school, this time on a rented VHS. It wasn't until Air announced that they would be soundtracking a newly restored edition of the film that I found out a color version had ever existed. In fact, Méliès had hand-painted his film, frame by frame, when he had first produced it. The DVD release, remastered from these hand-painted original frames by Lobster Films, proved a remarkable change from every version of the film I'd ever seen. The eccentric (and understandably inconsistent) coloration nicely compliments the film's bizarre imagery, and it adds an added layer of vitality to a piece of art celebrating the 110th anniversary of its release. Air's enjoyable soundtrack also inspired me to try to sequence my own to accompany the new print, with the unauthorized help of musicians more gifted than myself. You can watch the results below; with or without the music, it's a fascinating spectacle.