As Christmas approaches, we begin to hear songs, see films, and read announcements in the media related to the season. We already relate this holiday to certain screen classics, like “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946), “The Nightmare before Christmas” (1993), and the many cinematic versions of the classic Dickens novella “A Christmas Carol.”
However, the silver screen’s love affair with Christmas goes back much further. Evidence of this lies in a film called “The Christmas Dream,” by George Meliès, a pioneer of cinema to whom we have referred in previous articles. This film dates to the year 1900; its original title is “Le Rêve de Noël.” It mixes elements of the fantastic with traditional Christmas symbols, and one of its most interesting points is that Meliès himself acts in it, playing both a magician and a beggar.
This film has been preserved and digitized by The Movie Database, an online database of audiovisual content.
Banner Video: The Christmas Dream (Le Rêve de Noël, 1900) ㅡ Georges Méliès
Featured Image: Photography from the film: As a full moon shines in the night sky, angels appear on village rooftops covered with snow.
