The
year the word “Computer” was first used to describe a mechanical
calculating device (1897), French magician and cinema pioneer Georges
Méliès released a little movie called “Gugusse Et L’Automate” The
Clown and the Automaton. It was the first movie to feature a robot as a
lead character, L’Automate or The Automaton.
The
word “Robot” though, did not really exist in 1897. It was invented in
1921 by Jose Capek while helping his brother Karel Capek write the
script for a stage play called “R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)”. The closest word back then to what a robot does was “automaton”. In French, Automate.
An
automaton is a mechanical creation designed to look and perform like a
living being. They were popular forms of entertainment in the mid to
late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Most automata were miniature
representations of humans and could perform amazing tasks like drawing
pictures, writing poems, or simulate playing musical instruments.
Gugusse
, was a popular, well known French name for a clown, much like Bozo was
a common American term for clown in the 1950’ and 1960’s.
Gugusse
Et L’Automate is a “Lost Film”. There are no known copies that exist
today. No one knows for sure what happened to this movie. Near the end
of his career Méliès destroyed or threw away some of his original
films. During World War I many movies were destroyed for recycling to
reclaim precious silver and to melt down the celluloid to make heels
for military boots.
It
is rather ironic that Méliès films may have been turned into the heels
of boots, considering the fact that his father was a successful shoe
manufacturer. When the shoe factory was turned over to the sons,
Georges sold his share to purchase a magic theater. Included in the
purchase of the theater was an inventory of automata, which no doubt
provided inspiration for his “Gugusse Et L’Automate”.
What
might the movie have actually looked like? Piracy and plagiarism was as
much a common practice in the early days of motion pictures as it is
today. The Selig Polyscope Company, an American company founded in
1896, is attributed with producing a movie titled “Clown and Automaton”
in 1903 which is described as such in the Selig Catalog:
“A
magician produces before the audience a small automaton figure of a
clown, which he places upon a pedestal, whereupon the figure begins to
grow, as he passes his hand in front of it, until it is full life size;
when it at once comes to life and endeavors to quarrel with the
magician. He, however, with the aid of a heavy sledge hammer, gradually
reduces the figure to its original size. One of the most interesting
films ever presented.”
Other descriptions exist attributed to “Gugusse Et L’Automate”, simply stating, “presenting a clowns reactions to the hijinks of an automaton”.
Taking
into consideration the actions of Méliès’ other movies, it is very
likely that “Gugusse Et L’Automate” may have played out as follows.
Gugeusse
approaches a small Automaton on a pedestal and winds it up. The
Automaton grows to life size and chases Gugeusse around the stage
performing acrobats and slapstick. Having had enough of the Automaton’s
antics, Gugeusse hits the Automaton over the head with a mallet,
beating it back down to size.
It has been claimed that Georges Méliès got the idea for his Growing/Shrinking trick from Albert A. Hopkins’ Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions Including Trick Photography published in 1987 (the same year that “Gugusse Et L’Automate” came out?). Méliès
was already such a successful and accomplished magician by then that
the claim is unlikely. You can see an example of Méliès’
Growing/Shrinking trick in “The Man with the Rubber Head” (1902). His
technique for the trick was basically a double exposure. Having painted
a portion of the background black, usually disguised as a sort of
arched portal or tunnel. He would be sure that no action would occur in
front of the black area at the moments that the trick was to be
executed. He then rewound the film in the camera and took down the set,
replacing it with a completely black background. The actor would be
brought onto the set and positioned in the frame where the black portal
was and his actions would then be exposed onto the same piece of film,
creating the illusion that the actor had been on the same set at the
same time.
Although
Méliès was known to frequently reuse sets, in the case of “Gugusse Et
L’Automate” it would not be surprising if he had used no set background
at all as he did in “Un Homme de Têtes”/ The Four
Troublesome Heads (1898), and L'homme-Orchestre / One Man Band (1900).
Using an overall black background would have been a wise choice if this
was actually the first time he attempted the trick. For the second
exposure of the film where the Automaton grows to life size, the actor
would have been positioned far away from the camera so as to appear
like a miniature. To accomplish the growing part of effect Méliès put
the actor on a platform with rollers and pulled it towards the camera,
preferring to keep the camera stationary to avoid excessive vibrations.
Ever the performer Georges often appeared in his own movies. In “Un Homme de Têtes”/
The Four Troublesome Heads (1898), he shows up as four disembodied
heads on tables while a fifth full-bodied incarnation of himself plays
a fiddle. It would be no stretch of the imagination that he might have
performed Gugusse himself. The Automaton however, more likely might
have been performed by another actor. If standing still while being
pulled around on a rolling platform was involved, and if the hijinks
were anything like any of his other movies, Méliès most certainly would
have given the part to an acrobat. Many of the actors in his movies
were indeed professional dancers and acrobats.
The
duration of the movie would have been fairly close to one minute. The
Selig Catalog describes “Clown and Automaton” as being 65 feet in
length. The earliest motion pictures were very short, displaying brief
scenes and tricks all shot in a single take. Later as the technology
and the concept of “Editing” were developed, movies became longer. In
1897 when “Gugusse Et L’Automate” was released the standard running
time would have been about a minute. It is unlikely that Selig
Polygraph would have made many additions or subtractions from the
original story when they did their “Remake” five years later, bringing
it in at 65 seconds. Many movie cameras back then could also double as
projectors and were driven by a hand crank. It would take two turns of
the crank to advance one foot of film through the camera/projector and
the standardized speed for exposing and projecting film was one foot
per second, giving us roughly one minute for 60 feet of film. Roughly,
“Clown and Automaton” at 65 feet may have been the result of the camera
operator not cranking fast enough, or Selig simply did not care much
about the exact length of his pirated plot. Back then the movies were
advertised in the length of the filmstrip itself. Since the projectors
were cranked by hand the actual running time could vary. If the
projectionist was bored he would crank slower and the film would run
longer, if he got excited during an action shot he might crank faster,
thus making the film run short. Interestingly enough though, if the
camera operator got excited during an action shot while exposing the
film, he might crank the film too fast, as a result he would accidently
increase the number of film frames being exposed and create a slow
motion effect. Imagine being the projector operator having to
compensate for that.
The
Silent Era of motion pictures was surprisingly full of movies that
featured robots, with up to one hundred known titles. Perhaps the most
famous of all silent movie robots is Electra, aka “False Maria” in
Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (1927). Brigitte Helm plays the beautiful
revolutionary Maria who’s likeness is imposed upon a cold evil metal
android intent on crushing the workers revolt. One year later Helm
would play the last movie robot of the Silent Era. In “Alraune” (1928),
she plays a seductive tragic victim of genetic engineering. Genetic
engineering? Like in “Blade Runner”(1982)? Way back in 1928?
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