Le Musée Méliès @ La Cinémathèque française
After visiting Marilyn Monroe, I noticed the glorious, generous and really cool Cinémathèque française allowed Parisians to access its permanent collection for free during these heatwave days.
Awesome move.
I hadn't returned for many years (once in Chaillot, once in Bercy) and I had never been back since they rethought/rebranded their collection as Musée Méliès.
I'm not sure about my own memories but it feels like it's less exhaustive than it used to be and probably designed to tell the story of cinema through the eyes of one historical figure.
It's not a bad thing. Méliès has been, from the very beginning*, a very well documented artist at La Cinémathèque and probably the best way to bridge the birth of cinema and today's movies (some nice quotes from Del Toro, Nolan, Scorsese, and Lucas are scattered here and there).
It also showcases impressive ways of explaining different kinds of pre-Lumière moving image mechanisms with very didactic setups and films. Kids wondering how a movie magically works would probably love this.
What can I say?
If you haven't seen it, go.
If you think you've already seen it, go again.
Bonus point: I saw the bird mask of Favraux in Georges Franju's Judex!
*Georges Franju's Le Grand Méliès is a good testimony of that!