Tinted Wraith

Magic mirrors; celestial mandalas; a sinuous puppet rising like a malign concertina from a well.

Segundo de Chomόn is such a significant player in film history that it’d be possible to fill an article with his achievements without even describing the films he made at all – special effects artist, photographer, director, he refined color cinematography, combined live action with animation, and built the first camera dolly. The hundreds of films he worked on span the full range of early cinema, from one-shot travelogues in 1903 to Abel Gance’s Napoleon in 1927, for which he devised special effects, he was in the forefront of movie magic his entire life, but the films he’s chiefly remembered for are in the Méliès vein.