The Impossible Voyage (1904)

Interesting facts

• Based on: Journey Through the Impossible

The Impossible Voyage, also known as An Impossible Voyage and Whirling the Worlds, is a 1904 French silent trick film directed by Georges Méliès. Inspired by Jules Verne's and Adolphe d'Ennery's 1882 play Journey Through the Impossible, and modeled in style and format on Méliès's highly successful 1902 film A Trip to the Moon, the film is a satire of scientific exploration in which a group of geographically minded tourists attempt a journey to the Sun using various methods of transportation. The film was a significant international success at the time of its release, and has been well received by film historians.

Production

The original French title of the film, Le Voyage à travers l'impossible, comes from a stage spectacular of the same name, written in 1882 by Jules Verne and Adolphe d'Ennery. Méliès was probably inspired by memories of this play, but otherwise the film bears little connection to it; the plot structure appears to be inspired more closely by a previous Méliès hit, A Trip to the Moon.

The Impossible Voyage was made during the summer of 1904. The film, running to 374 meters (about 20 minutes at silent-film projection speeds), was Méliès's longest to date, and cost about ₣37,500 (US$7,500) to make. In its staging and design, the film is symmetrical with A Trip to the Moon: while the astronomers' progress toward the Moon in that film is consistently depicted as left-to-right motion, the Institute of Incoherent Geography's progres…

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