"I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom. I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients." Gustave Courbet

05 November 2011

Voyage.



When Serge Bromberg learned that a color version of Georges Melies’ 16-minute silent film Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon)--a rendering that had not been seen in almost a century--had been found in Barcelona, he had to have it. That the celluloid relic had deteriorated into a solid decomposed mass and was damaged beyond all likely repair only made the film preservationist’s resolve deeper. “When you have a piece of the Holy Grail in your hand,” declares Bromberg, in a phone call from Paris, “you say, We have to save it!”

So he did. A decade later, Bromberg is putting finishing touches on The Extraordinary Voyage, a documentary that chronicles both the making of Melies’ groundbreaking 1902 film and the meticulous, against-all-odds process of restoring it to its full-color glory. The documentary, which closes with the color A Trip to the Moon, complete with a new soundtrack by the electronica group Air, will have its world premiere November 11 at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (the restored short itself debuted at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year).


Read the rest at Fast Company.

Georges Méliès at MoMA.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret author Brian Selznick's website is here. For the past two years, this has been the first book that I read aloud to my students. It's such an imaginative and a wonder-filled voyage.

Hugo opens over Thanksgiving ...

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