- cross-posted to:
- movies@lemmy.world
- movies@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- movies@lemmy.world
- movies@lemmy.world
Library conservators recently made a startling discovery in a batch of decaying film reels – a long-lost 1897 film by early cinema icon George Méliès. The French magician-turned-filmmaker’s "Gugusse and the Automaton,” the first appearance of a robot on screen, has long been sought after by sci-fi fans and cinemaphiles. No one had seen it in more than a century when Library staff carefully unwound it. You can see it now in this post and on the Library’s National Screening Room.



Definitely worth a view, it has some nice special effects for its time. It’s always a shame that the accompanying music for most old silent films is lost, although in a lot of cases there wasn’t really any and it was made up at the theatre each time.
Edit: For those who don’t want to go on US government websites Wikipedia has a copy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gugusse_et_l'Automate_-_1897.webm