In the United States, the lost film of a French cinema treasure found in an attic

The old wooden chest had been in the family for a century, moved from the attic to the barn, from the barn to the garage, over generations. No one knew it contained a treasure from French cinema.

No one, until Bill McFarland, a retired professor and great-grandson of a rural Pennsylvania projectionist, discovered old films that “seemed too precious to throw away,” he said.

But the septuagenarian “had no idea what they represented” or how to view them.

He first tried to sell them to an antique dealer, who refused after learning that nitrate reels were highly flammable and could explode.

Last summer, Bill McFarland traveled from his home in Michigan to the National Audiovisual Conservation Center of the Library of Congress in Culpeper, Virginia.

Among the ten reels was a lost film by Georges Méliès, a French cinema pioneer, titled “Gugusse et l’automate.”

The film was made in 1897, two years after the Lumière brothers’ first public cinema projection in Paris, attended by Méliès himself, a magician known for experimenting with early cinematic special effects.

Five years later, in 1902, Méliès made “A Trip to the Moon,” considered one of the first science fiction films.

He released his last film in 1913 before fading into obscurity and becoming a toy seller in a shop at Gare Montparnasse in Paris.

Georges Méliès was one of the “first film directors,” according to George Willeman, the Library of Congress nitrate reel collection manager, who believes the film found by Bill McFarland is likely a third-generation copy of the original reel.

Méliès’ films were subject to piracy, making him “one of the first filmmakers to face piracy,” Willeman said. He also reportedly destroyed hundreds of his negatives, using melted film to make boots for soldiers during World War I.

Although “Gugusse et l’automate” was in the illusionist’s catalog, it had never been seen until Bill McFarland brought his reels to Culpeper last September.

In the film, Méliès plays a magician operating a crank on an automaton that gradually grows and strikes the magician on the head.

“This footage is remarkably precise for such an old film, and the jokes are timeless,” said Jason Evans Groth, curator of animated images at the Library of Congress.

Bill McFarland’s great-grandfather, William DeLyle Frisbee, was born in 1860 in Pennsylvania. In his spare time, he left his potato fields and beehives to travel with a horse-drawn carriage, featuring the latest Edison phonograph, a magic lantern, and later a projector and films.

Travel accounts in worn-out notebooks testify to Frisbee’s travels. “I gave a show in Garland, five dollars in revenue, a tough crowd,” reads one of his journals.

A century later, Library of Congress archivists experienced the same excitement over the films.

They stored the precious reels in a cold room designed to prevent nitrate-caused fires and preserved tens of thousands of films from Hollywood’s golden age.

Archivists spent a week restoring and digitizing the reel. Despite shrinking and tearing over time, the film was in good condition, considering it had been stored in an attic or barn exposed to the sun.

“Gugusse et l’automate” is now part of cinema history, accessible on the Library of Congress website.