Rip's Dream (1905)

Interesting facts

Rip's Dream is a 1905 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès.

Production

Rip's Dream is based on two sources: the original 1819 "Rip Van Winkle" story by Washington Irving, and the 1882 operetta version of Rip Van Winkle (with music by Robert Planquette and libretto by Henri Meilhac, Philippe Gille, and Henry Brougham Farnie). Two elements, the mysterious snake and the village idiot, are Méliès's own creations.

Méliès himself plays Rip. His son André appears as a village child carrying a large lantern. (Rip's friends' lanterns are in fact Bastille Day celebratory lanterns with the initials RF, for République française, clearly marked upon them.)

Like many of Méliès's films made around 1905, Rip's Dream revels in theatricality. While some of Méliès's earlier major films, such as The Impossible Voyage and The Kingdom of the Fairies, had experimented with innovative cinematic continuity techniques, these later films are based fully upon the storytelling traditions of the stage.

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