Lost 19th century film by Méliès discovered at the Library

https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2026/02/lost-19th-century-film-by-melies-discovered-at-the-library/

Library conservators recently made a startling discovery in a batch of decaying film reels -- a long-lost 1897 film by early cinema icon George Méliès. The French magician-turned-filmmaker's "Gugusse and the Automaton,” the first appearance of a robot on screen, has long been sought after by sci-fi fans and cinemaphiles. No one had seen it in more than a century when Library staff carefully unwound it. You can see it now in this post and on the Library's National Screening Room.

42 points · 4 comments · view on lemmy.world

4 Comments

CombatWombat@feddit.online · 14 pts · 175d (1 reply)

The whole movie is included in the article and is under a minute. Worth a viewing, imo.

zaphod@sopuli.xyz · 13 pts · 175d

Definitely worth a view, it has some nice special effects for its time. It's always a shame that the accompanying music for most old silent films is lost, although in a lot of cases there wasn't really any and it was made up at the theatre each time.

Edit: For those who don't want to go on US government websites Wikipedia has a copy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gugusse_et_l%27Automate_-_1897.webm

Lembot_0006@programming.dev · 3 pts · 175d

Ok. I have seen better movies but the plot is on par with many modern Hollywood flicks.

badelf@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 175d

Thanks for this. Awesome find. I really enjoyed the fictional film Hugo (2011) which featured this "Automaton".