Four Heads Are Better Than One (1898) User Reviews

The Cinemagician in all his glory

[ackstasis · 9/10 · 12 June 2007]

Early French filmmaker Georges Méliès is universally known as a pioneering cinematic visionary, courtesy of the phenomenal success of his most famous film, 'Le Voyage dans la lune / A Trip to the Moon (1902).' However, the director's undeniable genius is also apparent in many of his earlier, lesser-known shorts, most running less than one minute in length. Throughout the 1890's, most filmmakers had only exploited the cinematic medium for experimental or documentary purposes, capturing images of everyday objects or situations. Méliès, a magician by trade, saw things much differently. He imagined cinema being used to translate the impossible onto screen, to surprise and baffle the audience, to transport them into a world unlike their own. His 'Un homme de têtes / The Four Troublesome Heads' of 1898 is an absolute gem, and an incredible exhibition of how far Méliès was ahead of his time in terms of visual effects.

The film begins when a magician (as always, played by Méliès himself) appears on stage and, remarkably, removes his own head. When he places the singing head onto the table, a new one suddenly appears on the his shoulders, and the magician and the head interact with each other, with the former scrambling beneath the table to prove to the audience that he is not playing a cheap magical trick on them. The magician repeats this stunning feat twice more, until there are three enthusiastically singing Méliès heads sitting on the table, and the intact magician entertains them with his banjo.

Probably the first use of split-screen in cinema history, the visual effects in 'Un homme de têtes' are nothing short of remarkable. The countless uses of split screen, dissolves and double exposures blend seamlessly into the finished product, convincingly passing itself off as having been filmed in a single take. The director's extraordinary on screen charisma is once again on show for all to see, and you can certainly tell that he was formerly a magician; his vibrant enthusiasm for the performance is almost infectious. There's also the sheer casualness with which Méliès removes his own head, as if it's nothing at all to him. Despite already knowing that an exceptional amount of work must have gone into producing the film, somehow it is all made to seem so easy… almost like magic.

Wonderful!

[jluis1984 · 7/10 · 18 April 2007]

In December of 1895, the Lumière brothers began the first series of screenings of their "moving pictures" starting with this the history of cinema as a form of entertainment. Among those first impressed by the magic of motion pictures was a man who differed from the Lumière's idea of using cinema only for scientific purposes, the stage magician Georges Méliès. Story says that the very day he watched a movie for the first time, Méliès bought a Lumière cinematographer to do his own movies as he discovered the potential of movies as an art form. Like all the early pioneers, Méliès started with short documentaries, but quickly he put in practice his idea of using the invention to tell stories. His continuous experimentation took him in 1896 to the discovery of many special effects where he was finally able to "transform reality" in his movies. The amazing "Cinemagician" had arrived and with him, cinema as a narrative art had been born.

1898's "Un Homme De Têtes" (Literally "A man of heads", but better known as "The Four Troublesome Heads") is one of the earliest surviving films done by Méliès, and while not as well known as his posterior work, it already shows the amazing talent that the magician had as a creator of special effects. As many of his earliest movies, "Un Homme De Têtes" is basically a short movie where he shows a magical trick impossible to achieve in real life. In this case, a magician (Méliès himself) appears on stage, and removes his own head with magic, putting it in a table next to him. Suddenly, another head appears over his shoulders and the head on the table begins to sing. The magician repeats the trick until he has three heads on a table besides his own, and now he has four singing heads to perform a song.

Barely with little less of a minute of duration, "Un Homme De Têtes" is a wonderful display of Méliès' talent with special effects, as with a mixture of prosthetics, dissolves and multiple exposures he achieves a very lively representation of his magic. While for today's technologies this little trick is pretty easy to achieve, it is a remarkable achievement for early film-making, as the "gimmick" surprisingly looks very real and still is very effective despite being over 100 years old. The way Méliès conceived the trick is also worthy of praise, as the movie feels very fluid and the necessary cuts for the trick are done very smoothly. As with most "gimmick films", there is no plot other than a magician performing his act as if it was a theater presentation, however, Méliès makes a very charming performance as the magician that adds a lot to the movie's atmosphere of being in a circus.

French director Georges Méliès is definitely better remembered for his early fantasy films like his version of "Cinderella" ("Cendrillon") or his famous "A Trip to the Moon" ("Le Voyage Dans la lune"), movies where not only he showed wonderful special effects, but also a brilliant narrative skill and a vision for set designs. However, it was with films like "Un Homme De Têtes" where everything started, and when one compares Méliès' early work with the early films of other pioneers, one can see who was truly the superior filmmaker at the time. Definitely one of the early masters of cinema, Georges Méliès' work is one of clever tricks, enormous imagination and true magic, as he was probably the first person who knew that cinema was the factory of dreams. After all, he was not called the "Cinemagician" for nothing. 7/10

Way Ahead of the Rest

[Hitchcoc · 9/10 · 10 November 2017]

Not only is this a clever use of the limited technology of the time, it is an utterly hilarious minute. Melies plays the main character, a man who is able to remove his own head and put it on a table. Now there are two heads, but that's only the beginning. I see this guy sitting up nights, imagining what this new form of entertainment can do and then improvising how he can manage it.

Outstanding For Its Time, & Still Fun to Watch

[Snow Leopard · 12 September 2005]

This early Georges Méliès fantasy feature is outstanding for 1898, both in its convincing special visual effects and in its witty good humor, and it's still lots of fun to watch today. There are quite a few lesser-known gems among Méliès's many fantasy features, and this is one of the best ones.

The setup is simple, but Méliès uses it with great skill and imagination. Méliès himself appears on screen, and does tricks with his own head. As elementary as the camera tricks are, Méliès was already expert at using them, and as a result most of the illusions are seamless and very enjoyable. There is also a good deal of humor in the ways that Méliès interacts with all of the "Troublesome Heads".

Any film that still survives from the 1890s is usually worth seeing for its historical value, and most of them also provide some kind of interesting information on the techniques or subject matter of the earliest movies. But this is one feature whose value goes well beyond the historical. It's enjoyable in itself, and it is also one of the earliest examples of the genius of one of cinema's most extraordinary pioneers.

For 1898, pure magic!

[planktonrules · 10/10 · 2 September 2006]

Okay, this is NOT a great film compared to later films--even the later films of this film's creator, Méliès (who created many, many magical films such as Le Voyage Dans le Lune). But, and this is the important part, for 1898, the film is without peer for its brilliant use of camera tricks. Like ALL other films of the era, this is a short film--lasting between one and two minutes (depending on the frame rate at which it is played), but in all other respects it is different. Showing his love for the absurd and fantastic, Méliès features a performer who pulls off his head and places it on a table--where it sings away. Then, a new head re-appears and he does it again until there are four heads in total!! It is amazing for its time and not to be missed by film historians.

If you want to see this film online, go to Google and type in "Méliès" and then click the video button for a long list of his films that are viewable without special software.

50 seconds of cheer fun

[KuRt-33 · 10/10 · 17 June 2002]

I saw that one teen boy gave this short (how else to call a movie lasting only 50 seconds?) a poor 2 out of 10. No sense of history there. Un Homme de Têtes may not even last a minute, but it's incredibly fast-paced and extremely well done. Hey, it even looks more convincing than most of those computer-generated special effects you see in the cinemas these days.

Méliès takes off his head a few times and sings a song with the head clones. A simple idea but brilliantly executed by the cinemagician (as the French DVD aptly describes this pioneer).

The Four Troublesome Heads is one of Melies' earliest

[tavm · 7/10 · 27 August 2006]

The Four Troublesome Heads is the first and earliest short shown in a fifteen short compilation called Melies Magic Show on an Arte Video DVD called Melies the Magician. It's basically Georges taking off his head three times, putting two on the table to the right of him and one on the table to the left. He then sings with the three heads. The end. Hardly much today but must of charmed audiences back then since this was the first time split screen was used and three times no less! Melies would eventually become a pioneer of various special effects that he would use again and again to great acclaim throughout France and the world. It's him that we owe for bringing fantasy to motion pictures. So if you're a Melies fan who hasn't seen his earliest works, seek this one out by all means.

"55 seconds of pure bliss"

[supercat-1 · 10/10 · 15 May 2007]

I must agree with Méliès' granddaughter's description of this film. While there isn't really a plot, the film exudes pure genius in its construction. Although it looks like a single 55-second scene, the film actually combines dozens of snippets of performances and does so amazingly fluidly. The effects in this film could easily be done today using computer graphics, but would have been difficult to achieve before the 1990's. And yet Méliès was able to pull them off almost a century before that.

Although Méliès would later go on to produce some dramatic films, the most famous being his "Trip to the Moon", the pacing and energy of his later works generally fall far short of what he exhibits here. Further, while many of his later films have at least some noticeable mismatch edits or other problems, his technique on this film is perfect. Absolutely amazing.

Four troubled heads

[rssaaiill · 7/10 · 17 October 2021]

For 1898 totally amazing. Even when we rode around like cars on our buts in the early 70s it was amazing. He was the first and father of imagination of that sort.

Genius short by Georges Melies

[Leofwine_draca · 9/10 · 21 August 2016]

It's hard to believe that this brief effort from 1898 still exists and is viewable for just about anyone thanks to the delights of the Internet. It's another early effort from Georges Melies that utilises simple stop motion camera tricks to quite wonderful effect. Here, the emphasis is on ghoulish head-play, as a man pulls off his own head which then multiples until a number of heads are singing and laughing on the tables about him. Seen today, the special effects seem primitive and obvious, but imagining how this must have looked back in 1898. I can well imagine that people were fleeing in fear. Melies was a true genius.

Four heads are better than one!

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 11 April 2022]

Imagine - a review that will take longer to write than the actual film! Actually, it's more like a clip lasting just about a minute, and the illusion that's at the center of the story is more camera trick than magic. Even so, for 1898, this was quite a cinematic feat, and probably had some theater viewers fainting in astonishment! The transition of Georges Méliès removing his head and placing it on a table next to him isn't the smoothest, but you can forgive the lapse each time for the sheer wonder of the experiment. At one time this would have been almost impossible to find, but one can catch it now on HBO Max under their Turner Classics hub. What do you have to lose - it's only a minute!

A greater head until it is possible

[luigicavaliere · 8/10 · 17 February 2019]

A man pumps a head on two tables, making it enlarge. Afterwards, the head gets smaller and his assistant again makes it zoom until it explodes. Metaphorically, the head can be enlarged with the increase of knowledge but it must be remembered that man has its limits represented by the time of learning and the amount of knowledge that does not have to blow up the head.

An interesting early look at special effects.

[ofpsmith · 7/10 · 22 March 2016]

Like with many of Georges Melies's films, this is an early experiment into special effects. The plot sees a magician making three copies of his head and placing them on the tables. Then they sing a song with Melies himself at the guitar. That's about it. Like with a lot of Melies's films it's short, but groundbreaking in terms of special effects. This film is more than 100 years old, (118 at the time of this writing) and the special effects still look good. Just think how this must of looked back in 1898. That's about all I have to say. Go check it out. If you end up not liking it, then it only ended up taking a minute of your time.

Early tricks from the cine-magician

[Red-Barracuda · 5/10 · 20 April 2012]

This film is a very early example of special effects wizardry. Considering that it was made in the 19th century, its only fair to say that it holds up very well. Most people can work out now how the effects were achieved but that's irrelevant, as they are done so well. George Melies took a diametrically opposite approach to cinema to the Lumiere brothers. Both were pioneers but the latter saw the new medium as a way of capturing reality, while Melies realised early on that it was perfect for creating the impossible. As a result, Melies movies remain imaginative and entertaining to this day, while the Lumiere films retain historical significance but aren't too interesting otherwise. In this sense Melies is the true forefather of the movies, while the Lumieres are essentially the first documentarians.

In The Four Troublesome Heads we have another magic show. Melies plays a character who removes his head several times. The squabbling heads then sing a song. It's basic but cleverly done. And, taking into account the year it was made, it's pretty out there.

Superimpositions and Stop-Substitutions

[Cineanalyst · 27 January 2008]

"The Four Troublesome Heads" is one of the earliest surviving films by Georges Méliès to employ the multiple exposure technique, or superimposition effect. He used the technique earlier in "The Cabinet of Mephistopheles" (Le Cebinet de Méphistophélès)(1897), but it appears to be lost. (There's also a brief superimposition in "The Magician" (Le magicien)(1898), for a head on a stand.) It's uncertain whether Méliès or George Albert Smith introduced the trick to cinema, although what seems to be the earliest relevant film that I know of is the aforementioned film by Méliès. Smith tried to patent "the invention of double exposure applied to animated photography", but that was frivolous since the technique was already in use in still photography. Somewhere from around July to October 1898, Smith made at least six films that employed the trick. In "The Corsican Brothers", "Photographing a Ghost" and "The Mesmerist, or Body and Soul", Smith used multiple exposures to make transparent ghosts. He also used the technique, coupled with a masked camera lens, to create a scene-within-a-scene vision in "The Corscican Brothers", "Cinderella", "Faust and Mephistopheles" and "Santa Claus". In regards to masking the camera, Smith, indeed, seems to have introduced it to motion pictures. Méliès would later use masking for his multiple-exposure trick films, such as "A Mysterious Portrait" (Le Portrait Mystérieux) (1899) and "The One-Man Band" (L' Homme orchestre) (1900). Nevertheless, the uncertainty is somewhat moot given that Méliès and Smith are known to have had discussions around the time of these inventions, and both filmmakers were leaders in exploring the possibilities of motion pictures.

The superimpositions of "The Four Troublesome Heads" are not for ghosts, but, rather, are for four cloned heads of same texture; this effect of same texture is achieved with the black background. In this film, Méliès accomplished the headless and no body effects by masking himself with black clothing. Additionally, a dummy head was used while the Méliès with a body moved the heads to the table. For these transitions, Méliès employed his second essential trick of stop-substitutions (a.k.a. substitution splicing). The camera operator stopped the camera – the scene was rearranged – and filming resumed. They are essentially jump cuts touched up by post-production splicing. Méliès had already used the stop-substitution trick in such films as "The Vanishing Lady" (Escamotage d'une dame au théâtre Robert Houdin) (1896), and it would continue to be probably his most used trick during his film-making career.

Yet, these tricks are only of a technical and filmic history interest without Méliès's unique showmanship and enthusiasm, which was largely responsible for the immense popularity of his films in his own day and the preference of today's audiences for the films of Méliès over those by other early filmmakers. Méliès was, indeed, more cultured and absorbed with theatrical traditions than were his contemporaries. Later, filmmakers would surpass much of his theatrical style, but at the time of this film, he was leading the way with it.

If two heads are better than one, four heads must be better than two.

[Pjtaylor-96-138044 · 8/10 · 9 December 2021]

'The Four Troublesome Heads (1898)' is, essentially, an experiment in special effects. It's basically a magician's trick that's only possible through the medium of film. Though some of its visuals are expectedly a little wonky, it's mostly an impressively convincing example of extremely early visual effects. It's hard to believe it came out 100 years prior to my own birth; its techniques are still being used today, albeit in a slightly more advanced form. It's a really entertaining experience. There isn't all that much to it, but it still manages to inspire wonder even all these years later. It's the sort of thing that puts a smile on your face and keeps it there. It's an incredibly inventive, effortlessly enjoyable and certifiably charming little short. 8/10.

Magical!

[Chrissie · 10/10 · 11 April 2010]

Georges Melies was a stage magician before turning to film, so it's no surprise that he plays a stage magician. But in his films, Georges does what no stage magician could possibly do.

In "Un homme de tete", Melies repeatedly takes his head off and grows a new one three times, then gets out a banjo and sings a quartet with bodyless selves. The fluidity and aplomb with which he performs is nothing short of remarkable.

While many early films are primarily interesting for their historical value, Melies' transcend mere museum pieces. Like Buster Keaton's silent films, they are timeless and retain their charm -- in this case, well over 100 years later.

Neat Film

[Rainey-Dawn · 9/10 · 12 July 2019]

Four Heads Are Better Than One aka The Four Troublesome Heads.

You can see the black bag he wore over his head for the trick- but it's kinda hard to see. Even with seeing the bag over the head the film short is still worth watching -- the 4 heads are the same actor so it's pretty amazing stuff for 1898.

9/10

Melies' magic, part two

[jamesjustice-92 · 9/10 · 24 October 2022]

The other technique Melies prolifically used (and probably invented) was multiple exposure and the film that showcases it the best is his 1898's one-minute long "A man of heads" (Un homme de têtes) where he removes his head multiple times and talks to the heads and even sings in sync with them (exactly this effect Buster Keaton used in "The playhouse" twenty years later). No wonder people considered Georges a wizard of kind because he could do almost anything on screen to keep the viewers' eyes wide open in awe.

I'm sure no one would argue that the world of cinematography owes almost half of its defining moments to the maestro Georges Melies and his simple yet effective movie magic that he invented more than 120 years ago.

Possibly the greatest short film ever

[maztergamer · 10/10 · 18 February 2021]

This is my favorite short film of all time. There isn't much depth to it (I mean it is one minute long what would you expect). But it is very impressive technically. It shows quite a lot in one minute. So let me explain what happens. This guy takes off his head and puts it on a table. Then a new head appears. He does that 3 times. Then he gets rid of three of his heads and puts one of the heads back on. The great thing is that it looks like it is actually happening. It even looks pretty good now. It is especially impressive for it's time. Definitely watch this short film. Unless you somehow don't have a single minute open in your approximately 16 hour day.

Méliès moving beyond the substitution splice

[Tornado_Sam · 3 September 2018]

Even though it's only 1898, filmmaker Georges Méliès is already starting to move beyond the substitution splice which made possible the various spectacular illusions on film which he produced. "The Four Troublesome Heads" not only uses such an effect, it also continues on to employ multiple exposures (or superimposing) to create even crazier illusions which are amazing for the time. In this brief film, director Méliès stars as a magician or prestidigitator who is able to detach his head from his shoulders and set it on a table, where it is able to converse with the magician in an amusingly delightful way. He continues to repeat the same illusion until there are three heads on two tables which are able to perform a sing-a-long with the master. Finally, in an amazing twist which I won't spoil, the magician is able to return everything to normal.

Even though it's only a minute, "The Four Troublesome Heads" contains some points of interest that make its context more interesting. Not only was the theme of dismembered body-parts a common one in the filmmaker's career, the director would often perform tricks with dismembered heads--his own, most often--and this movie was the first. In "The Man With the Rubber Head" of 1901, he is able to blow it up using bellows (or so it appears) and the trick of a zoom combined with superimposition. In "The Melomaniac" the heads are music notes, thrown up on a telephone wire to form a line of "God Save the King". In "The Mysterious Knight" the head is actually that of a young woman who he can make appear and disappear, and even in "Dislocation Extraordinary" a clown is able to take his head off and sit on top of it. The disembodied was clearly a fascination of Méliès's is general; and the head was no doubt the most useful for the films in his perspective because it could show amusing facial reactions to delight and amuse the viewers.

Yet, when you do look at it closely, you can figure out how the magic was accomplished. First of all, note how the head is not living when the director is holding it: merely a dummy head, used only briefly to fool the audience. The headless person effect was very simple also: a dark cloth used to cover the director's own head. This explains why a black background (very bland for a Méliès production as opposed to the beautiful sets he would paint for other movies) was necessary to carry the illusion. Why, I cannot explain. It's more obvious here than in the aforementioned films because the entire set is black, but if you pay more attention to where the head is disembodied in the later movies, you will notice it's the same way. Furthermore, while the heads are on the table, the tabletops will generally tend to shake around a lot, again because they and the heads are being superimposed onto the set. Méliès would later improve on this, but for the time it probably didn't matter since audiences had absolutely no clue how he achieved it anyway.

Nowadays, "The Four Troublesome Heads" is often considered one of the director's best known films, and it's easy to see why. Not only are the effects amazingly well-done for 1898, Méliès's humorous performance carries the sight gags and makes them fun and amusing to see. He was a gifted actor, whether he played a frightened inn guest, a magician or Satan, and his joyful charm onscreen makes these shorts put a smile on your face. It's no wonder he played the lead roles in most of his films; not only was he forced to play them, he did a great job in them. Even though this film is 120 years old as of this writing, it holds up very well today and no doubt will keep you entertained throughout its brief run-time.

Early Méliès, already messing with our (and his) heads

[des-47 · 8/10 · 24 October 2013]

It's tempting to see the two great French pioneer film makers, the Lumière brothers and Georges Méliès, as two opposing poles of the cinema — the documentary depiction of reality set against the drive to enhance reality, and show things that previously couldn't be shown. But this is over-simplistic. First it underestimates the extent to which, even in their earliest films, the Lumières were taking aesthetic decisions about exactly which slices of reality to depict, and how — consider the camera placement and timing, for example, in L'arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat. Not long afterwards, they took to re-enacting events they weren't able to film for real.

Meanwhile Méliès, for all that he seemed to take a more forward looking and adventurous approach to the possibilities of cinema, was deeply rooted in a much older tradition. He was a stage magician and illusionist, owner of Paris's Théâtre Robert-Houdin, an heir to the staged spectacle, the Fantasmagorie and the magic lantern show. Attending the Lumières' first Paris exhibition in 1895, he immediately saw the potential of this technology in achieving illusions he'd already been pursuing by other means. The brothers refused his offer to buy one of their machines, but within a year he bought a projector from Robert Paul in London and built a camera himself.

Méliès' tradition is explicit in this film, which is staged as if in a theatre, with the man himself as the magician performing to an imaginary audience, and even taking a bow at the end. But the illusion presented would be impossible to achieve so convincingly without film. Méliès several times removes his own head and places it on a table, then regrows a new one, until he's surrounded by three detached heads, all jabbering away animatedly at each other to prove how alive they are. He attempts to wrangle them into singing together, but soon gives up in frustration and extinguishes two of them with a blow from his banjo.

It's funny and visually striking but also poignant — the film externalises our experience of conflicting inner dialogues. How much we've sometimes wished to shut up some of our own jabbering heads with the swat of a banjo.

A wiry, balding man with a naturally comical appearance, Méliès regularly performed in his own films, often decomposing and distorting the image of his own body, and particularly his head. He's always worth watching and this is a particularly fine example of his eccentric, athletic and manically energetic style — you can believe he's capable of bullying reality into new shapes by force of gesticulation. Like many of the pioneers, he never reaped the just rewards of his foresight, and it's rather saddening to see his energy here and then remember that he ended his career scraping a living selling sweets and toys from a kiosk at Gare Montparnasse.

Awesome technology

[thomasgouldsbrough · 9/10 · 22 February 2022]

What an awesome way to use technology. His ability, back in 1898, to replicate his own head, multiple times in simply astounding. It makes for a very clever use of technology, and it's actually quite humorous to watch.

Méliès makes heads turn in this one

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 6 September 2013]

Georges Méliès proves once again, he's not only one of the most ground breaking filmmakers of all time, but also a pretty good magician.

Basically, he's taking off head after head in this one and puts them on a table. And as if the audience wasn't entertained enough already by his Cerberus performance, he puts out a lute and plays some music. The three heads wonder what's going on and Méliès obviously not amused by their reactions smashes one after the other. Well.. you should have given them hands too if you wanted them to clap for you.

In any case, it's a convincing performances and the master gesturing like a mad man throughout add nice entertainment value. For his next show, maybe create three torsos in the end?

Melies

[Michael_Elliott · 26 February 2008]

Four Troublesome Heads, The (1898)

*** (out of 4)

aka Un Homme de tete

Classic Meiles film has him playing a magician who removes his head three different times and lays them on a table where they naturally act up. This is perhaps one of the director's most popular films and it's easy to see why as the effects are pretty good and the film is just fun throughout. The highlight is without a doubt the scene where Melies removes him head and then throws it up into the air where it eventually falls back into place. I think the distraction of the heads could have been done better and with more imagination but overall this is another delightful film from the magical Melies.