Another in the campaign conducted by Gaumont and Pathe to take over Melies' market by producing movies that cost far more than he could afford -- the stencil method of tinting the prints that Pathe used here was too expensive for Melies to replicate regularly. Within a year Melies' production would be sputtering and in 1912, he would go out of business, to spend the last 27 years of his life running a subway stand -- indeed, he grew so depressed over his failure that he destroyed all of his prints.
Segundo de Chomon, Pathe's inventive director, experiments with getting away from the proscenium arch, and simplifying the design to dice patterns. The appearing and disappearing, the backward-running sequences and so forth are all as carefully planned as anything by Melies, but the lack of Beaux Artes design robs the picture of lushness and mystery. But by this point, it didn't really matter any more.
Segundo de Chomon, Pathe's inventive director, experiments with getting away from the proscenium arch, and simplifying the design to dice patterns. The appearing and disappearing, the backward-running sequences and so forth are all as carefully planned as anything by Melies, but the lack of Beaux Artes design robs the picture of lushness and mystery. But by this point, it didn't really matter any more.