I really like this one. Once again, the poor bearded man tries to get some shuteye. Unfortunately, he has a series of visions (dreams). The first is pleasant, a pretty young woman; but when he tries to embrace her, she turns into a black man with a banjo. That guy transforms into a clown, and finally a big dominating face. The pacing is very good and the thing is genuinely funny.

It only runs for one minute, but this film is among Mélieès' most interesting works. We see a man who has a nightmare, which starts quite nice though as he dreams of a beautiful woman clad in a toga with curly black hair. The moment he wants to hug her, however, she transforms into a male banjo player and afterward into another man. As they finally disappeared the moon outside becomes huge and pretty scary, looks like the one from Méliès possibly most famous film. Finally the three dream creatures appear again and right afterward the dreamer wakes up, checks if there something under his pillow that was responsible for this nightmare and then goes back to sleep. Lots of action for just 60 seconds I know. Quite entertaining short film that may be a good choice to start with when you want to get into the age of silent movies.

This, "A Nightmare", is one of Georges Méliès's earliest films. It's one of his first films to feature a formula he would return to for many of his subsequent productions, from "The Bewitched Inn" (L'Auberge ensorcelée (1897)) to "The Black Imp" (Le Diable noir (1905)). The setup is simply a man trying to sleep despite nightmares or bizarre happenings to his surroundings (often, furniture and such moving, disappearing and appearing). These films provided Méliès with plenty of opportunities for his trick effects--mostly stop-substitutions (or substitution-splicing)."A Terrible Night" (Une Nuit terrible (1896), an earlier film by Méliès, is the earliest available example of this genre, but that film didn't contain any filmic trick effects. Another previous film of his, "The Vanishing Lady" (1896), had stop-substitution tricks presented within a magic trick. "A Nightmare" features a different device to present its magic--that is, dreams. In later films, Méliès would also introduce fairies, malevolent wizards and other devices (i.e. science fiction and aliens in the case of the more elaborate "A Trip to the Moon") to present his trick effects, which allowed them to be at least within something resembling a narrative.The most noteworthy of the dream images, I think, is the moon with a face, which bites the protagonist's hand. Méliès would again use the moon in such films as "The Astronomer's Dream" (1898) and "A Trip to the Moon" (1902). Additionally, this film contains five backdrop changes, all accomplished through editing, as with the character appearances and disappearances. The film was shot in the open air, as indicated by the shadows. The early history of film is scattered with knockoffs of Méliès's films; for example, one of the more popular early films remaining today, "Dream of a Rarebit Fiend" (1906) was clearly a product of this genre "A Nightmare" helped initiate.

Nightmare, A (1896) **** (out of 4) aka Le Cauchemar A man (played by Melies) is asleep in bed when he begins a nice dream of a woman lying on the end of the bed but soon this turns into a nightmare as a monkey, a clown and the moon begin to play tricks on him. Here another classic from the director, which contains some very good laughs including the sequence where the moon comes to life and attacks him. The special effects here are also very good for the era and it's rather amazing how good they are considering what else was being done at the time. The film runs just over a minute and there's not a dry scene to witness. Certainly one of the best films from this era.