(Archive footage)
Vida y obra del pionero de cine español Segundo de Chomón y la peculiar relación que tuvo con su hermano gemelo, Primo de Chomón. Segundo de Chomón (Teruel 1871-París 1929) fue el cineasta español pionero del cine mudo y de la técnica de la animación cinematográfica. Fue un genio de los trucajes, dominó la utilización de maquetas, precursor del travelling, del cine a color y abuelo de la animación por ordenador. Por todo esto, se le compara con el otro gran pionero del cine universal, George Méliès, a quien durante toda su vida admiró e imitó al servicio de la Pathé francesa para, con el tiempo, superarle en el perfeccionamiento de algunos aspectos técnicos del cine de animación. La rescisión de su contrato le obligaría a regresar a España. Una etapa de fracasos precedió su marcha a Italia, donde lograría culminar su carrera junto a Pastrone en su mayor superproducción: Cabiria.
(Archive footage)
Homenaje a Segundo de Chomón. Semidocumental que incluye cortos y la intervención de actores que explican sus obras, como Inma de Santis, Jesús Gúzman o Ana Mariscal.
A woman falls asleep on a park bench. The Devil appears and summons an imp who takes the woman to his fantastic lair. After a nightmarish episode, the woman awakens only to promptly doze off again. Now a fairy appears who shows the woman a beautiful dreamland.
Female magicians turn people into origami roosters and vice versa.
Belle
Screenplay
Una pareja llega a un hotel donde todo funciona mecánicamente. Considerada una de las primeras películas con la técnica del Stop-motion, realizado por uno de los directores más importantes del cine mudo, el español Segundo de Chomón.
Laure
Una pareja llega a un hotel donde todo funciona mecánicamente. Considerada una de las primeras películas con la técnica del Stop-motion, realizado por uno de los directores más importantes del cine mudo, el español Segundo de Chomón.
This is not only a colored film of great beauty, but one showing a series of clever trick pictures in which great ingenuity on the part of the operator is exhibited.
At the beginning of this film two women come onstage dressed in Oriental fashion. They present a shadow play theatre.
A young woman passing through a cemetery at night is suddenly startled by a voice coming from one of the graves. She wishes to rush away, but the ghost appearing compels her to remain. He explains to the terrified girl that she must go to the kingdom of Satan and get a bottle of the Water of Life, which she must bring back to him. The girl consents to do as he desires and starts forth on her expedition after the precious fluid. She summons a lot of soldiers and friends to her aid, and we follow the whole army down into the bowels of the earth. (Moving Picture World)
Woman
A remarkable early short silent movie that shows what may be achieved with the technology of the day. A woman sits in front of her dressing table mirror, looking at her jewellery and her reflection in the mirror. Suddenly, another woman appears in the mirror. As the woman watches, the image changes to other women. As the woman looks at her jewellery, women's faces begin to appear in the jewellery stones.
A frog hops around a magic fountain.
The first scene presents before the astonished eyes of the spectators a solid piece of marble, which the minute it is placed on a table seems to take life, and one can follow a snake-like line branding on the polished face of the stone the name of the house of Pathé Frères. As soon as this stone has been engraved, as by magic, a handsome young lady appears with a huge lump of clay covered with a cloth. As soon as the cloth is removed from the soft mass it starts whirling and turning as if stricken mad, and one is asking one's self what all the contentions are going to lead to, when the vague shape of an animal not yet discernible seems to appear, and before one has time to make one's mind as to the category of brutes to which it belongs one sees the form of a remarkably well made orang-utan modelled out of the clay, who calmly smokes his pipe. Then the statue is removed by the same winning young lady and another covered block of the same substance is carried forward.
Based on the story of "Sleeping Beauty" by Charles Perrault.
Titles read: The Christening of the Princess; The Good Fairies Fatal Prediction; The Royal Edict; The Princess is Sixteen Years Old; Searching for the Princess; The Prediction Comes True; Thou Shalt Sleep for a Hundred Years; A Hundred Years later the Prince Charming Goes Hunting; Prince Charming Dismisses His Escort; The Castle of Sleep; The Guard's Hall; You Have Been a Long Time Coming, prince; The Wedding of the Sleeping Beauty to Prince Charming.
“Music Forward!” is the order given by a lady in Colonial costume, and in march a group of five musicians, working industriously at their instruments. The directress stands them in a row, and taking the head off each, throws it onto a huge music staff and each becomes a note of the scale. The whole bodies appear again, after which the manipulator seems to wrap them up in a large sheet of music, which is then shown to contain nothing. The paper is rolled up again, and a cane is held, perpendicularly, in a horizontal position to the sheet.
In an outdoor setting, a magician makes pond nymphs and frog people appear out of water and thin air.
The Devil is bored. He goes back to Earth with a magic elevator. He surprises two sewer workers, disguises himself as a city man, and spreads improbable events: quarrel with a coachman, altercation with a city sergeant, mystification of a barman, quiproquo with couples… He's trapped in a cage with a young woman, and goes down to hell. Surprise, the young woman is Madame Devil who was disguised by jealousy.
Rising from a stage are two vases which separate to reveal a female dancer behind each of the vases. They create magical circles of flowers from which other women emerge. The dancers construct an elegant floral display, in the middle of which a miniature dancer performs. Another circle of flowers is brought forward on the stage, toward the camera, and in the circle are shown a series of women. The original pair of dancers conclude by twirling their parasols.
An old woman begs a young men to carry her heavy bundle of firewood. The man refuses: he rather goes to sleep. The woman, who turns out to be a witch, punishes him with terrible apparitions.
A magical woman and her magical eggs.
A sculptor creates several faces in a span of four minutes.
Short trick film
A demonic magician attempts to perform his act in a strange grotto, but is confronted by a Good Spirit who opposes him.
A basket of flowers appears and moves by itself to the middle of a decorative arch. From the basket, a woman magician appears. From a cylinder, the magician conjures a series of tiny dancers and acrobats who perform on a table top, and in the palm of her hand. (Library of Congress) Possibly created by Segundo de Chomón.
