The Dwarf and the Giant (1901)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

good back-story, and good acting

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Blistering performances.

George Melies is a big man. In this very brief film, Melies comes out. First he splits into two identical men. As they are doing a bit of give and take, one tells the other he is going to make himself big. He pulls at the top of his head until he is three times the height of his alter ego. Once here, he throws snow or dirt or something on the little guy. The ending is slapdash.

This is just a little technical jeu d'esprit by Méliès but it has a certain context. "Géant et nain" (Méliès had deliberately reversed the tile although this has a slightly clumsy sound in French this way round, just as it would in English) was the title of a vaudeville act (a comic wrestling routine) featuring two clowns, les frères Marco, one of whom was very tall and the other of whom was a dwarf. Their performance was celebrated and the subject of a famous sketch by artist Toulouse-Lautrec published in "Le Rire". They were also filmed by the Lumières in 1896. This may also have in part inspired the idea of the "fat and the lean wrestler" used by Méliès in Nouvelels Luttes Extravagantes the year before.

When you watch this short from Georges Méliès, you need to see it in context for when it was made. The average film from 1901 sucked! Most of them were very, very short and very, very mundane. Now there were definitely exceptions, but no one other than Méliès was, at the time, making consistently entertaining films that pushed the technical envelope. So, before you dismiss this one, realize that he was the one that developed these techniques! The film features the director as the actor--something pretty common in his films. And, like many other films, Méliès plays a magician--since he was one in real life. In this case, the magician comes out on screen and appears to make himself double before your eyes. Then, the original makes himself huge. Audiences of the time must have been dumbfounded, but we know now what you can do with double-exposures. Still, it's well done and has a nice sense of humor. Well worth seeing.

Dwarf and the Giant, The (1901) ** 1/2 (out of 4) aka Nain et géantSomewhat entertaining film has Melies once again playing a magician and this time he comes out on stage and morphs himself into a double. Once he's doubled, he makes on of them shrink to a dwarf while the other grows to a giant. That's pretty much all that happens in this film as it runs just under a minute so I guess you could say that time didn't allow for anything else to happen. What's here is pretty entertaining but it's nothing strong enough to rank this as one of the director's best films. The special effects are good though.