A Trip to the Moon in Color

This YouTube embed of George Méliès’s Le voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon) will probably get taken down in the near future, so you should watch it while you can.

{::nomarkdown}

This is the newly restored color version of the 1902 film featuring a brand new soundtrack from Air that premiered at Cannes last year. Even though this version of the film has digital hits, I found it more exhilarating than a lot of the action films I’ve seen in the past year. The color restoration is gorgeous; it brings out a layer of the film that we’ve been missing for over a century.

Le voyage dans la lune may be 110 years old but it’s having quite the comeback. In the past year it got a restoration of a presumed lost color print, a brand new pop soundtrack that fits the material quite nicely and an extended love letter to the film and its maker in the form of Martin Scorsese’s Best Picture nominated (and wonderful) Hugo.

Air released their album, which comes with the above video, today. Unfortunately, the only ways to get the video legitimately right now are in standard definition, but there is definitely a 1080p cut of this floating around. You should probably just buy the album so you can see a (slightly) better quality version of the film.

If you get the CD/DVD package, the MP3+Video download at Amazon or if you grab the album and movie at iTunes you will be supporting the candler blog. Additionally, you can see if a screening is coming to your town. Probably worth checking this one out on the big screen.