Get Mooned

A couple of months ago, silent films might not have seemed impressive to fans of modern cinematography. Silent movies don’t feature huge musical scores, high-quality computer-generated imagery, or transforming creatures. They don’t even feature words. But then The Artist came along and seduced Hollywood into a night of Oscar sweeps,...

By Devin Desjarlais

March 22, 2012

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A couple of months ago, silent films might not have seemed impressive to fans of modern cinematography. Silent movies don’t feature huge musical scores, high-quality computer-generated imagery, or transforming creatures. They don’t even feature words. But then The Artist came along and seduced Hollywood into a night of Oscar sweeps, and now wordless movies are all the rage. But to fully appreciate silent films’ modern versions, you have to know where they come from. Enter A Trip to the Moon. Created by Georges Méliès in 1902, the silent film tells the 16-minute story of a group of astronomers who go to the moon. No big deal, right? Well, consider this: An additional, colorized version was discovered in 1993 in Barcelona by director and film preservationist Serge Bromberg. By that time, it had decomposed into a solid mass. So Bromberg spent nearly a decade and close to a million dollars restoring the film into a viewable piece. The completed project debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011 and has been touring the United States since. Now it’s coming this Monday to Miami Beach Cinematheque (1140 Washington Ave., Miami Beach), along with The Extraordinary Voyage, a film documenting the entire process.
Mon., March 26, 7 p.m., 2012

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