The Eclipse, or the Courtship of the Sun and Moon

Lore & Background

Georges Méliès appears in the film as the professor of astronomy, with the actor Manuel as the class supervisor and Mademoiselle Bodson as a comet. Some scenes in The Eclipse were originally made by Méliès for a film commissioned for a revue at a Paris music hall, La Cigale. Special effects were created with stage machinery, pyrotechnics, substitution splices, superimpositions, dissolves, rolling scenery, and a mannequin for the professor's fall.

Reader's Guide

The Eclipse has been remarked upon for its overt sexual symbolism. Christine Cornea posits that the film's primary theme, the clash of scientific logic with sexual desire, was also evident in Méliès' earlier films A Trip to the Moon and The Impossible Voyage, and would become prominent in many subsequent science-fiction films. Some scholars, interpreting the Sun and the Moon to be both male, have described the erotic 'eclipse' as an early depiction of homosexuality in cinema, with an 'effeminate' Moon being seduced by a 'devilishly masculine' Sun. By contrast, Méliès's film catalogue describes the liaison in heterosexual terms, referring to the participants as 'the man in the sun' and 'dainty Diana' and using pronouns to match. Film critic William B. Parrill calls this courtship scene 'a comic passage worthy of Ernst Lubitsch at his best … one of the great moments of silent comedy.'

Did You Know?

• The film features an anthropomorphic Sun and Moon that lick their lips in anticipation before a romantic encounter.
• The professor of astronomy topples from an observation tower and lands in a rain barrel, revived by his students.
• Some scenes were originally made for a film commissioned for a revue at a Paris music hall, La Cigale.
• The film has been interpreted both as a heterosexual courtship and as an early depiction of homosexuality in cinema.