The Brahmin and the Butterfly
La Chrysalide et le Papillon d'or, released in the United States as The Brahmin and the Butterfly, is a 1901 French short silent fantasy film, directed by Georges Méliès.[1][2][3] It is listed as numbers 332–333 in Star Film Company's catalogues.
| La Chrysalide et le Papillon d'or | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Georges Méliès |
Release date |
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Running time | 2min |
| Country | France |
| Language | Silent |
Synopsis
A magician, playing the flute, makes a large caterpillar emerge from its cocoon, and then turns it into a woman-butterfly. Infatuated, he tries to capture her with a blanket, turning her into an Arab princess he covets more. But in trying to seduce it, he himself ends up being transformed into a large caterpillar.
Production
The Brahmin and the Butterfly was inspired by Buatier de Kolta's 1885 magic act Le Cocon, ou Le Ver à Soie. In the act, de Kolta drew a silkworm on paper; the paper broke to reveal a cocoon, which opened to reveal de Kolta's wife dressed as a butterfly.[4]
Méliès appears in the film as the Brahmin. The effects for the film were created using stage machinery and substitution splices.[4]
Release and reception
Like many of Méliès's films, The Brahmin and the Butterfly was sold both in black-and-white and in a version hand-colored by the studio of Elisabeth Thuillier.[4] The film survives only in black-and-white; in 1979, the film scholar Jacques Malthête recreated the hand-colored version using historically authentic technology, applying eight color tones to a black-and-white print.[4]
The film was screened in 2000 at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Italy. The film scholar Paolo Cherchi Usai contributed a one-sentence program note: "The most beautiful love story of early cinema!"[5]
References
- Morris Beja (1989). Coping with Joyce: Essays from the Copenhagen Symposium. Ohio State University Press. pp. 150–1. ISBN 978-0-8142-0467-2.
- Elizabeth Ezra (2 September 2000). George Méliès. Manchester University Press. pp. 97–8. ISBN 978-0-7190-5396-2.
- Paul Clee (2005). Before Hollywood: From Shadow Play to the Silver Screen. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 148. ISBN 0-618-44533-1.
- Essai de reconstitution du catalogue français de la Star-Film; suivi d'une analyse catalographique des films de Georges Méliès recensés en France, Bois d'Arcy: Service des archives du film du Centre national de la cinématographie, 1981, pp. 94–95, ISBN 2903053073, OCLC 10506429
- "Chrysalide et le Papillon, La", Giornate Database, Pordenone Silent Film Festival, 2000, retrieved 17 December 2017
