Gugusse and the Automaton

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Gugusse et l'Automate
Frame from 35mm print
Directed byGeorges Méliès
Produced byGeorges Méliès
Distributed byStar Film
Release date
  • 1897 (1897)
Running time
20 meters/65 feet[1]
CountryFrance
LanguageSilent

Gugusse and the Automaton (French: Gugusse et l'Automate),[1] also known as The Clown and the Automaton,[2][3] was an 1897 French short silent film directed by Georges Méliès.[1] The film featured a clown amazed and confused by the mechanical movements of an automaton.[2]

The film marked the first known cinematic appearance of a robot (a word that would not replace "automaton" until its use in Karel Čapek's play R.U.R.),[4] and was one of the earliest films to feature themes of "scientific experimentation, creation and transformation."[2] In their Things to Come: An Illustrated History of the Science Fiction Film, Douglas Menville and R. Reginald judged Gugusse to be the most significant scientifically themed film of 1897, and suggested that "may be the first true SF film."[3]

Méliès's Star Film Company released the film, numbered 111 in its catalogues.[1] Long presumed a lost[5] the Library of Congress acquired a 35mm nitrate print in 2025. (Not yet available for viewing, as of September 2025, as the delicate print undergoes preservation.)

Georges Méliès himself had a significant collection of automata, which began as theatrical properties that were part of the Théâtre Robert-Houdin in Paris, which the future filmmaker acquired in 1888. Brian Selznick's 2007 children's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a historical fiction that features a Méliès automaton. Martin Scorsese's 2011 film adaptation, Hugo, also makes the restoration of such a mechanical man part of the story.[6]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d Hammond, Paul (1974). Marvellous Méliès. London: Gordon Fraser. p. 137. ISBN 0900406380.
  2. ^ a b c Johnston, Keith M. (2011), Science Fiction Film: A Critical Introduction, Oxford: Berg Publishers, p. 55, ISBN 9781847884763
  3. ^ a b Menville, Douglas; Reginald, R. (1977), Things to Come: An Illustrated History of the Science Fiction Film, New York: Times Books, p. 3
  4. ^ Benson, Michael (2002), Fighting Robots: A Guide to Radio-Controlled Combatants, New York: Citadel Press, p. 15
  5. ^ Frazer, John (1979), Artificially Arranged Scenes: The Films of Georges Méliès, Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., p. 244, ISBN 0816183686
  6. ^ Weiss, Dennis M. (Spring 2021). "Hugo and the Automaton". Literature/Film Quarterly.


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