To anyone who has seen the movie Hugo, this image is quite familiar. Melies 1902 film "A Trip to the Moon" is an amazing example of what was done in early cinema. "A Trip to the Moon" is hailed as the first known science fiction film. Using many different experiments in special effects and cinematic trickery, this Melies classic is revered by many. This film doesn't really break any new ground in editing or camera angles. The use of the camera in this film is obviously from the perspective of behind the fourth wall or where an audience would sit in a theater. The one editing choice that has intrigued movie critics in the fact that they show the actual landing of the spaceship twice. They show the bullet hitting the moon in the eye and also the bullet actually hitting the surface and the astronomers climbing out. Showing the same action from multiple perspectives is something that we take for granted today, but in the early days of film they didn't think that the camera could be multiple places at once. The set of this movie is incredibly elaborate. It is amazing that even though this film is not in color, so much detail of this fantasy world is given to the viewer.
I love looking at pre-Hollywood era movies. At this times there were no rules that directors had to follow. They were not bound by a set of standards that are now followed in almost all movies and that all people today have grown accustomed to. This freedom produced some beautifully creative films, such as "A Trip to the Moon."
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