The others laughed, all except Stevens. He thought of the opulent house in Montreuil, the staid furniture and unexceptional paintings, of how the artists would ridicule them.
“It's only failed artists who use cameras, anyway,” someone else said. “People who have no talent. If they could paint on their own they wouldn't need a machine to do it for them."
They were wrong, but Stevens knew he could not make them understand. He had nothing in common with them any longer, he realized, and he finished his drink and left the café.
* * * *
Stevens filmed more of Méliés's magic tricks, and by May they had enough for a moving picture, Playing Cards. But they were starting to get bored with the garden, and they took the camera out into the streets, capturing people walking on the pavements, cars and horses driving by, a parade.
One day when Stevens came to visit he found the room already dark, Méliés running the projector. “Look at this,” he said. “Do you remember when we were filming at the Opéra a week ago, and the camera jammed? I didn't think to develop it until now, but look what happened."
He ran a strip of film, ordinary enough, an omnibus driving past the Opéra. Then, suddenly, the omnibus turned into a hearse. “This is where it jammed,” Méliés said, unable to contain his delight. “Remember? You fiddled with it and got it working again, but by then it was filming something entirely different. It's like a magic trick, isn't it? One thing substituting for another.” He laughed, and Stevens laughed with him, carried away once again by the man's excitement.
Summer came, and one day Méliés motioned Stevens in front of the camera again. “I want to try something new, an experiment,” Méliés said. “Stand still, just stay there. Don't move."
Stevens stood, wondering what tricks the other man had come up with this time, what illusions he had up his sleeve. But he felt foolish too, standing there in the hot sun of the garden. If Méliés had wanted a stationary picture he should have used an ordinary camera: the whole point of moving pictures was that they moved. “What—” he said.
“Stand still,” Méliés said again. “Just a moment longer."
Finally Méliés released him. “What was that about?” Stevens asked.
“I'll tell you later,” Méliés said.
He ran the film a few days after that. Stevens watched himself standing motionless in the garden, then turning and speaking to the camera. When the film ended Méliés sat for a moment, then brought up the light and said, “It didn't work."
“What didn't work?"
“Remember when we did that magic, when I found that frog in my pocket? I was concentrating here, trying to imagine you growing wings, or sprouting horns—"
“Magic? You're kidding me. You're a grown man, you can't possibly believe that stuff."
“What about that frog, then? Where did that come from?"
“You had it with you."
“No—"
“There's no such thing as magic,” Stevens said. He felt slightly ridiculous, explaining this to a grown man, as if he were telling him that fire was hot, or knives were sharp. “The things we're doing here, with the camera, they're illusions, nothing more. Trick photographs, like the one with the hearse and the omnibus. And that's what we should be working on, not wasting our time with this other stuff."
Méliés said nothing, though Stevens sensed that he was not convinced. But he did not bring up magic again, and in the days that followed they invented new illusions that could be done with the camera. By November they finished their first picture showing a magic trick, The Conjuring of a Woman in the House of Robert-Houdin. It was the illusion Méliés had done in the theatre, a woman's head floating through the air without her body.
Their films grew more elaborate. Méliés formed a company to produce them, Star Films, and hired more and more people, carpenters and actors and dressmakers. There was even a team of women coloring some of the films by hand, frame by frame, as Stevens and Méliés began to experiment with color.
The weather was turning cold, though, making it harder to film outdoors. “I've been thinking about a sort of studio,” Méliés said. “Something made out of glass, so we could take advantage of the light."
Méliés drew plans and hired workers, and the building began to go up, a fantastic place of glass and wrought iron. But he had no formal training in architecture; the plans changed day by day as more and more problems appeared, and the work dragged on through the winter.
“It's sagging now, they tell me,” Méliés said one day. “They'll have to tear down the middle and start again. The thing is bankrupting me—they say it might end up costing ninety thousand francs."
Ninety thousand francs, Stevens thought, remembering the single franc he had given the woman at the theatre. It seemed unreal, one of Méliés's fantasies; he could not imagine having that much money.
He had been thinking of money more and more lately. His own was starting to dwindle, and already he was having to make sacrifices, to choose between a few meals and a winter coat.
Suddenly he resented Méliés, the man's wealth, his mansion. Méliés would never understand true poverty, what it was like to work at something you hated, something forced upon you. For a long time he had managed not to think of his father's fishing boat, but now he realized how close he was to having to go back, and the thought horrified him.
He had resented that artist too, he remembered, the one who had had more talent than he did; it had been a petty, ugly feeling, and he had fought hard against it. And now here it was again, after all this time, and once again he felt helpless before it.
Méliés was looking at him, wondering, perhaps, why he had said nothing. “Is something wrong, my friend?” Méliés asked.
“I—my money's almost gone. I'm going to have to go home, go back to fishing."
“But that's terrible. Isn't there something you can do?"
“What? I'm a mediocre painter, and I can work a camera, and that's all.” An idea came to him, suddenly, and he felt an unexpected hope. “What about—well, you can hire me. Pay me for what I'm already doing for free."
Méliés sighed. “I wish I could,” he said. “But I meant it when I said the studio was bankrupting me. I can't —"
His resentment rose up again, overwhelmed him. “You pay all your other employees."
“Is that how you think of yourself, as an employee? I didn't think —"
“Of course you didn't think! You'd have to pay me if you did, and this way you get me to work for free. You make money renting out these films—do you think I didn't know that? And I don't see any of it, not a franc, while you build this—this monstrosity in your backyard."
“But I barely make anything, truly. You know that—you've seen how hard I work, how many films I have to make just to break even."
Stevens said nothing. Méliés could come up with the money somehow, he thought, sell his silverware or china or those awful paintings.
“There has to be a way,” Méliés said. “Maybe the magic, we could work some magic together—"
“Magic! What are you, a child? Don't tell me you still believe that ma-larkey."
“All right, all right,” Méliés said. “Well, then, what about this? Remember that film we saw the other day, the one by Thomas Edison? He has a studio in New Jersey, the projectionist said. You could go work for him."
The projectionist had been from the United States, in Paris to show films from Edison's company. He had been delighted to meet other filmmakers, so enthusiastic he had not seemed to realize how many of Edison's secrets he was giving away.
“No, I can't,” Stevens said. “Edison's a suspicious guy, the man said. He only hires people he knows."
“What if I give you a reference?"
Stevens laughed bitterly. “A reference? What good would that do? The projectionist didn't even know who you are—what makes you think Edison would?"
“I don't know,” Méliés said, looking discouraged. “We'll think of something
, don't worry.” He brightened. “Here—let me show you something. A new trick."
So he hadn't understood, Stevens thought. He never would, probably. Here he was, showing off his rich man's toys, as if that was enough to make Stevens forget his problems.
They went inside the half-finished studio. “Look at this,” Méliés said. He picked up a sheet of glass and propped it up on one side.
An irregular portion at the top of the glass had been painted black. “See, you film through the glass,” Méliés said. “And then you paint a background on canvas, the same size as the black part, here, and you film that, you make a double exposure. You don't have to build all those sets and carry them around anymore—you can just paint what you need, anything you like. It makes shooting outside much easier—and you can show some of the scenery, trees and grass and rivers, and then add the rest later, a ship, a palace. You can add ten stories to a building just by painting it."
Stevens looked at the black paint at the top. A negative space, empty, and at the same time filled with possibility. He felt himself drawn inside it, and Méliés's words echoed within him: “Anything you like.” He could take this technique to Edison, offer his services. Edison would have to hire him then.
He could say he invented it. Edison would never know the truth, and Méliés would be far away, across the ocean. He deserved a break, finally; he didn't have Méliés's rich father, his rich wife, and through no fault of his own he did not have the talent to be an artist. Really, it wasn't an invention at all, just some paint on a glass; anyone could have thought of it.
Méliés was smiling at him, waiting as always for congratulations. “Well?” he said. “What do you think?"
Stevens roused himself. “This—this is for me,” he said.
* * * *
Edison's studio turned out to be as different from Méliés's as possible, a box of black metal with shuttered windows that could be opened to let in the light. Edison refused to see Stevens at first; then, after Stevens had returned several days in a row, he reluctantly let him inside.
He said nothing when Stevens showed him the glass technique, and Stevens nearly gave up finally, discouraged by his inhospitable manner. Then, after a long silence, Edison said, “Did you come up with this?"
“I did, yes,” Stevens said.
“Good,” Edison said. “We have to be careful these days—there are all kinds of people taking out patents, claiming to have invented this and that."
Edison gave Stevens his own room in the crowded studio. The work was challenging, different assignments every week, and he enjoyed using the skills he'd learned as an artist. He got a raise after his first year, then a bigger one. Directors asked his advice, and even Edison stopped by to talk to him.
More studios started up, Vitagraph and American Mutascope. One day he met a man from Vitagraph who asked him how Edison could afford to film in all those foreign places. Stevens laughed and hinted at mysterious techniques, and the man hired him immediately, at nearly double his salary.
Vitagraph was very different from what he was used to. Edison had insisted on secrecy, but here everyone shared their knowledge, worked together to solve problems. Stevens's glass technique had given him a reputation as a sort of wizard, and the other employees began to ask him for help. For the most part he was able to come up with solutions, but sometimes their problems were too much for him and he would think, very briefly, that Méliés would know what to do.
But he never wrote Méliés; the man had no place in his new life. He saw catalogs from Star Films every so often, films of flowers becoming women, women becoming stars, and he would remember the glass studio, the pane of glass painted black at the top. Sometimes he would feel bad for Méliés, even guilty, as if he had wronged the man somehow. Then he would tell himself that he had nothing to feel guilty about, and anyway Méliés was doing fine, his studio flourishing; there was no reason to worry about him.
One day a cameraman told him about a film he'd seen called Voyage to the Moon. “It's from Star Films, this outfit in Paris,” the man said. “I swear, I don't know how the guy did half those tricks. They shoot off this rocket, and it lands on the moon, and these guys get out and walk around..."
“That's crazy,” Stevens said. “You can't get to the moon."
“Maybe you can, someday. It's in this book by a French writer, scientific romances they call them."
“So what? That doesn't make it true."
“You should see this film, though."
“I'm too busy with my own pictures,” Stevens said.
Stevens put the conversation out of his mind. But a few months later a letter with French postage came for him care of his studio. It had been sent by someone with the unlikely name of E. Smile, and it was only after Stevens opened it and saw the Star Films trademark that he realized the name was an anagram for Méliés.
* * * *
17 July, 1907
My Dear Stevens,
Word gets around, and I have learned that you are working at Vitagraph Studio these days. I have learned too that you are now a specialist in the glass technique I showed you. I hope you are doing good things with it, that you are carrying on in the tradition of Star Films.
For myself, I have been keeping busy. I'm still working at my crazy, hectic pace, but mostly I enjoy it. Some of my films have been shown in the United States—perhaps you have seen them? Voyage to the Moon is especially popular, though I don't know why, I don't think it's one of my best. If you have seen it, though, it was probably a theft, a counterfeit. Unscrupulous men—gangsters, I think you would call them—are starting to copy my films and sell them as their own.
And this is not the worst of my troubles. There are now a great many film studios here in Paris, and the competition is fierce. In particular there are my own betes noires, the Pathé brothers, who have hired a dreadful man named Ferdinand Zecca to produce their films. Zecca's first order of business, apparently, was to copy everything I ever did. I make a film about life at the bottom of the sea, he follows suit with a film called, with his usual inventiveness, Drama at the Bottom of the Sea. I make films about the devil, he makes The Seven Castles of the Devil. He has even built a studio in Montreuil, hoping perhaps that some of my thoughts will waft like smoke down the street and into his thick head.
All films are made by brothers these days, it seems, the Pathés, the Lumiéres. Even I have brought my brother Gaston into my company, and sent him to New York to look after my business in the United States. It was he, I should tell you, who told me where you were working.
And you—I think of you as my brother as well. I've never forgotten the way we met, first at the Lumiéres’ theatre and then again at my show at the Robert-Houdin. It was magic, as I told you then, and so was the work we did together after that.
I hope you are keeping well.
Your brother,
Georges Méliés
* * * *
Stevens felt a rush of pleasure. Dammit, but he'd missed the man, the fun they'd had, the way every day seemed to bring new excitement, new discoveries. They'd practically created a new kind of art by themselves, all the more amazing because they hadn't known what they were doing from one day to the next. How had he forgotten that?
He read the letter again. This time, though, he saw things he had missed, and he remembered how annoying the other man could be. That guff about magic, for example—did Méliés still believe all that mumbo jumbo?
And what about the part at the beginning—"the glass technique I showed you"? Was Méliés claiming credit for that now? He was growing forgetful, probably; he had to be about fifty by now.
Stevens thought about the letter on and off, mislaid it, found it again. Finally, a few months later, he sat down to answer it.
* * * *
October 22, 1907
Brother Méliés,
Thanks for your letter! It was good to hear from you again.
They keep me busy painting these days. I just finished a huge
castle, with towers and turrets and God knows what. I'll tell you when the picture comes out—maybe they'll show it in France so you can see it.
I met a terrific girl named Adele, a seamstress who works at the studio. I'm even thinking of marrying her, if you can believe that. Wish me luck!
All best wishes,
Nate Stevens
* * * *
Letters came from Paris every few months, and Stevens wrote back, but as time passed he felt more and more distant from Méliés. He married Adele and bought a house, and they had two children, a boy and a girl. He had responsibilities now, and Méliés, though he also had a wife, and now two children as well, began to seem frivolous, a child himself. His memories of that time started to fade, and when he thought of them at all he marveled that he had ever been so young.
* * * *
27 January, 1909
Brother Stevens,
I am having to deal with your old employer Thomas Edison, and I must tell you I am not enjoying the experience. He claims to have registered the first patent for the film camera, and he has forced all the studios who want to distribute their pictures in the United States to join his cartel. Well, of course I agreed—what choice did I have?
The Pathé brothers joined as well. And unfortunately we had to promise to create a certain number of films for the American market, and to sell them for the same price. And here is where they have the advantage of me, because my films cost more to make than theirs, and take longer. This is why, of course, they are superior to the Pathés’ own pathetic productions. I am being forced into a ridiculous pace, and I don't know how much longer I can keep up.
But I don't mean to bore you with my troubles. Please write and tell me how you are doing.
Your exhausted brother,
Georges Méliés
* * * *
July 21, 1911
Dear Méliés,
Vitagraph didn't give me that raise I wanted, so I'm thinking of going somewhere else. I'm in a good position, too—I know all kinds of tricks the other studios don't. Someone even asked me how we can afford to shoot in all those exotic locations, out West and in the South Pacific and at the pyramids in Egypt.
Asimov's SF, October-November 2007 Page 25