adjak's review
5.0
This is a truly fantastic book. The physical book itself is gorgeous to look at and includes charming illustrations throughout.
Onto to Méliès' autobiography itself. It is an engrossing read, this is mostly due to his fascinating work, but also partially due to the conceit in which it is written. Méliès wrote it as if he was a journalist who had interviewed Méliès. This leads to some passages where Méliès hypes himself up and brags about himself in the third person (I didn't find it excessive though thankfully). Personally, I found these moments amusing, but I can see how others might find it off-putting or annoying. Either way, I feel the conceit lends some insight into a man who found himself essentially penniless and nearly forgotten at the end of his career. The autobiography is also annotated by Jon Spira, which I found provided interesting context and depth to Méliès' words.
This book far more than just Méliès autobiography though. The introduction includes a nice overview of the early days of film making. There's a translation of an article written by Méliès where he goes into detail about film making and the associated work that I found very interesting. There was also an intriguing section of Georges Méliès' brother Gaston who was also in the film making industry, I actually found myself wanting to learn and read more about Gaston and his work after reading this section. The book finishes up with a couple nice interviews with people in various aspects of the current film industry.
Overall, this is a great book that is more than worth a look!
Onto to Méliès' autobiography itself. It is an engrossing read, this is mostly due to his fascinating work, but also partially due to the conceit in which it is written. Méliès wrote it as if he was a journalist who had interviewed Méliès. This leads to some passages where Méliès hypes himself up and brags about himself in the third person (I didn't find it excessive though thankfully). Personally, I found these moments amusing, but I can see how others might find it off-putting or annoying. Either way, I feel the conceit lends some insight into a man who found himself essentially penniless and nearly forgotten at the end of his career. The autobiography is also annotated by Jon Spira, which I found provided interesting context and depth to Méliès' words.
This book far more than just Méliès autobiography though. The introduction includes a nice overview of the early days of film making. There's a translation of an article written by Méliès where he goes into detail about film making and the associated work that I found very interesting. There was also an intriguing section of Georges Méliès' brother Gaston who was also in the film making industry, I actually found myself wanting to learn and read more about Gaston and his work after reading this section. The book finishes up with a couple nice interviews with people in various aspects of the current film industry.
Overall, this is a great book that is more than worth a look!
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