A Trip to the Moon (1902)

Director: Georges Méliès (uncredited)
Stars: Georges Méliès, Victor André, Bleuette Bernon

 In cinema, most flying scenes involve either a realistic flight, as in for example the film Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986), or a magical flight, as in George Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon (1902) (Audissino, 103), which is considered to be the first science fiction film. The magical flight takes place when Professor Barbenfouillis plans a trip to the moon, and it is approved by his peers at the association of astronomers. Most of the preparation for the trip is in building the vessel and launching mechanism, which resemble a large bullet and gun, respectively. In a surrealistic moment, the “ship” lands by hitting the moon in the eye. (Hugo IMDb.com, 2020). Even though you never see the vessel fly through the sky or into space, the magical flight is presented in such a way as to let the spectator’s imagination fill in the blanks. Emilio Audissino states, “The magical flight is rooted in a fairy tale, bigger-than-life context and such flight is made possible by some supernatural or extraterrestrial magic power; the realistic flight, instead, is presented in a realistic situation where flight can be achieved by technology and proper machinery, i.e. aircraft” (Audissino, 105). In the various films discussed throughout this essay, we will look at the realm of magical flight and what makes it magical.