L'Homme à la Tête en Caoutchouc

L'Homme à la Tête de Caoutchouc (eng. The Man with the Rubber Head) is a short silent film directed by and starring French cinema pioneer Georges Méliès and produced and released by his company Star Film in 1901. It is one of Méliès' most famous and appreciated works.

Plot
A chemist is working in his laboratory, pouring chemical liquids in a bottle. Once he is over with that, he opens a large double door, revealing a completely dark room where a table with a smaller table with a rubber hose on it is. He takes both of them and carries them to the center of the laboratory, then takes a box from which he takes out a replica of his own head, capable of moving of his own, which he places on the tables.

He then sits on a chair next to the tables and notice how the head resembles his own. Suddenly, he has a stroke of genius, attaches the rubber hose under the small table, which presumably has a hole in, where the head is and begins to blow the head with a pair of bellows until it becomes as big as the huge doorway. In order not to burst it, the chemist opens a cock in the hose prompting the head to return to its original proportions.

Eager to share his discovery, the chemist calls one of his clown-assistant in and propose him to try it, too. The assistant, though, begins to thoughtlessly blow the head to gigantic proportions, deaf to the chemist's warnings, until it explodes in a cloud of smoke, knocking over both the table and the two men. In anger, the chemist literally kicks his assistant out of the laboratory. Alone, he begins to cry for the loss of the head, drying his tears on his apron.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Groundbreaking use of special effects, super-imposition among them, that almost makes the whole movie look real.
 * 2) Original concept that pushes to the limits of absurdity.
 * 3) Due to its intrinsic surrealism, the subject of the movie causes a unique mixture of different emotions in the audience, mostly a sense of weirdness and fun and plain sadness.
 * 4) Funny over-the-top recitation and mimic by Georges Méliès.
 * 5) Georges Méliès magistrally directed himself in this short.

Trivia

 * 1) In the movie, a Star Film sign complete with logo is clearly visible on the left. This was Georges Méliès' method of ensuring copyright for his works.
 * 2) This movie is referenced in the movie Hugo, released in 2011 and directed by Martin Scorsese, which is a homage to Méliès and his films.

Video
Being in the public domain, the movie can be seen in its entirety for free on web sites like YouTube without copyright infringment issues. Here is one of the several uploading of the movie on the site, in quite good quality and music provided by the uploader.

mwJMCLS4_JM