13: The Extraordinary Voyage with Restored A Trip to The Moon

 

Lincoln Center, New York

March 3, 2012

with: Juana 

Self reflection for tonight:  Sometimes no matter how much you love something, no matter how much of an expert or know it all you think you are-you completely miss something.  

I am talking about the Lincoln Center in New York City-two trains and a subway ride away from me.  I might act like miss high and mighty refusing to watch Bridesmaids and yelling at colleagues for hating on The Talented Mr. Ripley, but until last weekend, I had never heard of  that place.  ME!!! 

I have taken care of this problem. :0)

Here is how...

My mother has just as many friends as I do and then some. Mamacita has been nagging encouraging me to hang out with one of her most brilliant former colleagues.  Juana was a tour De force when I met her so many years ago. She works hard and follows her passions.  I knew she was a film student but I also knew that going back to school makes you crazy busy and I didn't want to bother her.  

We finally found a time (that is the story of every mother's memoir, finally found a time) to take in a movie in Manhattan with a nice dinner afterwards.

This was her text:

Ella: Let's meet at 5:45 at Columbus Circle, inside the mall by Botero's sculpture vale?

Yo: Nos vemos...

When I read her texts, I knew I was going to find a mall and a statue of a very fat woman without even googling it.  Duh, doesn't everyone know that?

I find the statue and was astonished at how many people wanted a picture next to it-then after we hug and kiss we go to the coolest place I've been to in New York city yet.

Again, I am floored by the vast amount of cinema possibilities this place has to offer.  Film festivals, lectures, galas, memberships...How in God's name have I not heard of this place? How long have I lived up here and I don't know about this? What kind of a fog have I been living in?  Don't answer that and don't bust out with a cliched song....

Once, when I was in line to buy tickets in Time Square, the tourist in front of me said she didn't care what she saw, she just wanted to see a Broadway show.  She told the ticket guy she didn't care.  After she was done, I asked her what she decided on. She still said she didn't know and she didn't care. She just wanted to be on Broadway. I really hope that man didn't send her to Spring Awakening or Avenue Q.  

Now I get her- I felt the same way last Saturday night when I was at the Lincoln Center. I didn't care what we saw. I was no longer in that tiny little movie theater in Robinson, Illinois waiting to see E.T. (you will hear that story Holy Week). I was at the Lincoln Center.  Juana was the film student, so I let her decide.

And we went with:

The Extraordinary Voyage (2011) with Restored a Trip to the Moon (1902)

The first part was a documentary about the French filmmaker Georges Melies. The second film was a completely restored original film by Melies in 1902-in COLOR and one of the first science fiction films ever made.  How cool is that to a science fiction freak like me?  I wish my brother could have been there too.

For me to like a documentary, it needs to be engaging and informative.  The information needs to be told and presented in a way that I will retain it.  I felt like I knew this filmmaker by the end of the show. I also felt a great respect for people that restore films. It is no easy task.

Let's talk about the man first.  He was one of the first filmmakers to use special effects and he discovered the substitution stop trick.  He made all kinds of silly and fantastical films using his special effects.  One of his most famous was A Trip to the Moon.

Here in 2012, All three of my children love to make movies of themselves with my iPhone, an iPod, or a webcam on the laptop.  Frances and Kenneth know how to click around and add special effects. They can change backgrounds and delete scenes.  

Georges Melies had to build his own studio with enough window light to film when it was sunny outside. No sun, no shoot.  There was no editing anything.  The final film has 30 scenes and lasts about fifteen minutes.  To color a film, each slide literally had to be colored.  Three hundred women could work on one film at a time.  The amount of time and technique it took baffles me. 

The second part of the documentary was about how a they restored the original film. I'll never look at film preservation the same way again.  You couldn't just start yanking at the film to pull it apart. You had to slowly chip at it over time.  When they finally had the film pulled apart, they had to snap a picture of each slide and piece in what they thought was missing. I can't do a Lego set for a seven year old-forget piecing together a film slide.

The actual silent movie was incredible. Landing on the moon looks like so much fun. I think the next time we are stuck inside on a rainy day, I pull up a copy of it online and have the children create dialogue to go with the pictures.  That will entertain us for a while.

I learned a lot last Saturday night:

1) The Lincoln Center is going to be my special place in New York City from now on, and I'll find something to see there whenever I'm there.  I don't care! :0)

2) Film-making has its own history and special people with stories to tell. Somethings have changed, but passion for the work has not.

3) These things take time. That silent film was found in 1999 and fully restored over eight years later.  We all need to work on our own calendars and make it as perfect as we want it to be-no rush.

4) I have strong women in my life-Juana is one of them!