''Le Sorcier'', sold in the United States as ''The Witch's Revenge'' and in Britain as ''The Sorcerer's Revenge'', is a 1903 French

silent Silent may mean any of the following: People with the name * Silent George, George Stone (outfielder) (1876–1945), American Major League Baseball outfielder and batting champion * Brandon Silent (born 1973), South African former footballer * C ...

trick film In the early history of cinema, trick films were short silent films designed to feature innovative special effects. History The trick film genre was developed by Georges Méliès in some of his first cinematic experiments, and his works remain the ...

Georges Méliès Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès (; ; 8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938) was a French illusionist, actor, and film director. He led many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema. Méliès was well known for the use o ...

. It was sold by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 473–475 in its catalogues.

Plot

In a courtly setting, a king condemns an old sorcerer to be chained to a post and tortured. The sorcerer, begging for mercy, attempts to entertain the court with magic, conjuring up a classical ''

tableau vivant A (; often shortened to ; plural: ), French language, French for "living picture", is a static scene containing one or more actors or models. They are stationary and silent, usually in costume, carefully posed, with props and/or scenery, and ...

'' and making a chair spin of its own accord. However, the king is steadfast. Just as he is about to chain up the sorcerer, however, his attendants transform into assistants of the sorcerer, and chain the king up instead. The sorcerer and the whole court link arms, and they all dance away happily.

Production

Méliès plays the sorcerer, whose magic is created using a combination of

stage machinery Stage machinery, also known as stage mechanics, comprises the mechanical devices used to create special effect Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, televisio ...

trap door A trapdoor is a sliding or hinged door in a floor or ceiling. It is traditionally small in size. It was invented to facilitate the hoisting of grain up through mills, however, its list of uses has grown over time. The trapdoor has played a pivot ...

substitution splice The substitution splice or stop trick is a cinematic special effect in which filmmakers achieve an appearance, disappearance, or transformation by altering one or more selected aspects of the mise-en-scène between two shots while maintaining th ...

multiple exposure In photography and cinematography, a multiple exposure is the superimposition of two or more exposures to create a single image, and double exposure has a corresponding meaning in respect of two images. The exposure values may or may not be id ...

s, and dissolves.

References

External links

* French black-and-white films Films directed by Georges Méliès French silent short films Trick films {{France-silent-film-stub