THE LAST DREAM OF GEORGES MÉLIÈS.
Last September, the University of Michigan published in English the most complete biography of the father of cinematography; Georges Méliès, written years ago by his granddaughter Madeliene Malthetes Méliès.
In this book his life as a creator of dreams and illusions is recounted. Builder of the first film studio in Europe, in Montreuil.
That would be the birth of science fiction movies.
This work includes detailed accounts of his entire life, from his first films in 1895, to his last stage in 1932, where he lived bankrupt selling toys and candies, the year that his figure was rediscovered and then vindicated in 1931, he would die in 1938.
What this extensive biography does not contain are the last thoughts of Méliés, since until now the connoisseurs and researchers of his life and work, took it for granted that his life actively linked to the cinema had ended many years ago, since when he lost his studios due to debts, he would have given up any idea of creating a movie again.
It is where a few years ago a letter with a pleasant surprise came into my hand, “a romantic story” as her great-granddaughter Anne María Malthese quotes in one of the conversations we have for the analysis of this letter.
In these lines that he supposedly writes to a notary, he lets him know his intention to collect an outstanding debt from the French state and with this sum of money and something else to undertake said task, already having in his possession a budget from a construction company for the rehabilitation.
It is a pity that these efforts that this document written in handwriting by Méliès recounts could not be achieved approximately 2 years before he died, thus not being able to perform his last trick the “magician of the cinema” as he was nicknamed, and having lowered the curtain with one last movie
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