Stills from A TRIP TO THE MOON

Georges Melies, the magician turned filmmaker who constructed a glass house in which to form his movie studio, churned out hundreds of films, and achieved some of the greatest innovations in early cinema. His 1902 film, A TRIP TO THE MOON, still the best-known of his films, delivers backdrops of painted sets, criss-crossed tableaus, a rocket taking the Man in the moon's eye out, and men in suits  jumping up and down as space aliens. Melies's cuts are something like jump-cuts: they take us from one action to another, they allow people to disappear and reappear in clouds of smoke.