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Bretteau
- Méphistophelès
- (as Gaston Breteau)
Storyline
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Hatot nnd Breteau do Méliès
Curiously this is one of the Gaumont films of this date that ha not regularly been claimed as the work of Alice Guy. It appears on the Series-C section of the Gaumont catalogue among films that were clearly mostly if not entirely the work of Georges Hatot and Gaston Breteau who were working for Gaumont during 1898-99. Many of the films in the section are on historical subjects (Hatot's speciality), many are remakes off films he had earlier made for the Lumières (1896-1898), some are quarrel scenes (another favourite Hatot subject) and a few, like this one, are trick films very clearly influenced but the work of Méliès (something of a new departure for Hatot). The décors for the films were provided by a Paris theatre, La Fantaisie nouvelle (very possibly associated with the prolific Paris décorateur Marcel Jambon with whom Hatot had already worked while with Lumière, for which a contract signed by Gaumont, Hatot and Breteau exists in the Gaumont archives.
Two bearded sages engage ina dispute before a large cauldron, from which they summon up Mephistopheles. There follow several rather inconsequential "metamorphoses". In fact Hatot had already made a similar film Faust : métamorphose de Faust et apparition de Marguerite for Lumière the year before and this Gaumont film appears to use exactly the same Marcel Jambon décors as in the earlier film.
Hatot and Breteau worked very much as a team. They had been together since the mid-1890s when they had worked in various Paris theatres. They would work together for the Lumières, for Gaumont and afterwards for Pathé (1900-1905) and would only be separated by Breteau's death in 1905, after which Hatot moved again to join another former theatre colleague Victor-Hippolyte Jasset at Éclair. Their partnership was particularly vital during their time at Gaumont because Hatot, who was still only 21-22 in 1898, was apparently obliged to do his obligatory military service (six months only if he was lucky), so in practice many of the films made at this time would have been directed by Breteau who also generally starred (here no doubt in the part of Mephistopheles).
Two bearded sages engage ina dispute before a large cauldron, from which they summon up Mephistopheles. There follow several rather inconsequential "metamorphoses". In fact Hatot had already made a similar film Faust : métamorphose de Faust et apparition de Marguerite for Lumière the year before and this Gaumont film appears to use exactly the same Marcel Jambon décors as in the earlier film.
Hatot and Breteau worked very much as a team. They had been together since the mid-1890s when they had worked in various Paris theatres. They would work together for the Lumières, for Gaumont and afterwards for Pathé (1900-1905) and would only be separated by Breteau's death in 1905, after which Hatot moved again to join another former theatre colleague Victor-Hippolyte Jasset at Éclair. Their partnership was particularly vital during their time at Gaumont because Hatot, who was still only 21-22 in 1898, was apparently obliged to do his obligatory military service (six months only if he was lucky), so in practice many of the films made at this time would have been directed by Breteau who also generally starred (here no doubt in the part of Mephistopheles).
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- kekseksa
- Oct 31, 2017
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- Runtime2 minutes
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