Last Night I Was Suddenly Thrown into the Presence of Monsieur Georges Méliès!
The French genius who, due to his astonishing abilities in filmmaking and manipulating reality on screen, earned the title “the first magician of cinema.” I suspect I had been thinking about Asghar Farhadi’s new film project in Paris before falling asleep. Whatever it was, the journalist in me wouldn’t let go—I seized the opportunity and conducted an exclusive interview with this cinematic sorcerer and France’s first film director!
Bijan Tehrani: Monsieur Méliès! I’m thrilled that, over a century after A Trip to the Moon, you finally found time to visit 21st-century cinema. Welcome! What are your impressions?
Méliès: Ah! What astonishing films… what a variety of monsters! What explosions—one might faint from the terror! And the things falling from the sky—left and right! Honestly, the only thing missing is a touch of imagination! Everything is here—except what you people call “the magic of imagination.”
(He actually said those two words in fluent English—it was amusing.)
Bijan: How wonderful that you speak English, though I’ve been speaking French! So you’re saying modern cinema lacks imagination?
Méliès: It’s not that it has none—but its imagination amounts to creating some flims, mass-produced 3D dragon! Today’s filmmakers don’t paint imagination with color and love—they render it with soulless software and lifeless animation.
Bijan: But even in your films, some were in color—hand-painted frame by frame.
Méliès: Yes, those were grueling techniques I used.
I was among the first to enchant the world with just a paper moon and a handheld sparkler—like your Little Ali The Littel series you made in Iran
Now, with millions in budget, audiences are bombarded for two hours with hollow, grandiose fantasies—and that’s it.
(I was nearly jolted awake at this point, but kept going.)
Bijan: Monsieur, what are your thoughts on superhero films? Marvel? DC?
Méliès (smiling): In my day, we had superheroes too—but ours were born of creativity and sleight of hand before the camera. A wizard, for instance, might cut off his head in one shot and reattach it in the next!
Your modern ones—these muscle-bound beauties—have brawn but no magic.
I even heard of a director in Iran, Sammuel Khachikian, who made audiences gasp simply by blowing dust on the lens and adding an explosion sound!
I wish today’s directors could at least pull a rabbit out of a hat like a novice magician.
Bijan: If you were alive today, with all this technology, what kind of film would you make?
Méliès: A film about real people—their emotions, their love—set in color, light, and nature… not inside some little black box like the one in your hand. What do you call it again—mobile phone?
Bijan: Yes… yes, it seems you’re not just a magician but a skilled fortune teller—you realized our lives are now inside this black box, master!
Méliès (with a smirk): Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet!
Your problem is you’ve imprisoned all your dreams inside a plastic rectangle.
If it were me, I’d blow up that ridiculous little box at the end of my film—set people’s dreams free!
I’d take them back to puppet shows, to the cinema, to live theater.
I’d call it: Return to the Magic Screen!
Bijan: It seems you still miss your old magical world, don’t you?
Méliès: Of course!
To me, cinema is like a circus—magic mixed with poetry, dreams, and humanity. A trip to the moon with a cannonball!
Your cinema today is the stock market of digital images.
It has everything… and yet nothing—because it doesn’t move me, doesn’t stir my heart.
Why?
Because it gives you everything, yet somehow gives you nothing.
No one misses going to the movies anymore.
Bijan: What message do you have for today’s filmmakers?
Méliès: You really are a journalist—even in dreams you chase moral messages!
Alright, here’s one:
Dear filmmakers, don’t forget imagination, even if your camera has a million megapixels.
Some things can only be created with a paper star and a dream-filled heart.
Remember: Film is like dreaming.
Bijan: If you went to a cinema today and saw audiences wearing 3D glasses, how would you feel?
Méliès: I’d probably think I’d walked into a mechanical nightmare!
Audiences now are like magicians who don’t know where their trick comes from.
They don’t see with eyes—they use filters. They don’t feel with hearts—they use instant reactions.
Cinema shouldn’t just deceive the eye—it must shake the soul.
Bijan: In your view, are new technologies enemies of imagination?
Méliès: Not necessarily. I used the technology of my time too—double exposures, stopping and restarting the camera to make someone disappear.
The difference is this: we made dreams with limitations.
Today, with endless tools, they make dreams that don’t feel like dreams. They just repeat themselves.
Imagination is like a butterfly—you can’t always catch it with a digital net.
Bijan: If you could choose an inscription for your tombstone, what would it be?
Méliès (with a smile): I don’t even know what my descendants have written!
But I’d wish it said:
“Here lies someone who turned cinema into dreams, not reality. If you’re searching for wakefulness, don’t watch my film!”
