The Legend of Rip Van Winkle

Frenchman Georges Méliès's film is quite removed from the original American story by Washington Irving. John Frazer ("Artificially Arranged Scenes") says it was based more on the fellow Frenchman Robert Planquette's comic operetta. In this 14-minutes-long forest fantasy, the revolutionary American politics are gone and Rip's 20-year-slumber is framed as a drunken dream. And, of course, it's made to display Méliès's usual magical, cinematic and theatrical tricks.

This is the first instance I've seen of title cards describing parts of the story in a Méliès film. The narration on the Flicker Alley DVDs doesn't make them necessary, but they were probably helpful for any viewers back then without a lecturer to describe the film.

According to Frazer, this film "did not sell well despite the fact that Irving's story is a natural vehicle for Méliès' fantasy. To a certain extent Méliès was beginning to have Rip Van Winkle's problem. He was a dreamer from another century and somewhat out of touch with the directions that the film world was beginning to take." While I generally agree that Méliès's films were in decline, this particular film, "Rip's Dream", is actually enjoyable compared to other Méliès films from around the same time. In addition to the benefit of seeing a hand-colored print, there's quite a lot going on in this one. One aspect I particularly liked was the synchronized stylized movements and walking early on.