1001 movies - You must see before you die
Le voyage dans la lune - A trip to the Moon
When thinking about A trip to the Moon, one'x mind quickly captured byh the original and mythic idea of early filmmaking as an art whose "rules" were established inthe very process of its producion. This French movie was released in 1902 and represents a revolution for the time, given its length (around fouteen minutes), as compared to the more common two-minute short films then being reodyced.
- Melies actually was a magician... And so he understood the possibilities of the motion picture camera" - Martin Scoresese, 2012
In a more general sense, A trip to the moon can be regarded as the movie that established the major difference between cinematic fiction and nonfiction. At a time when filmmaking mostly portrayed daily life (such as in the films of the Lumiere brothers at the end of the 19th centyry), Melies was able offer a fantasy constructed for pure entertainment. He opened the doors to future film artists by visually expressing his creativity in a way utterly uncommon to movies of the time.