| China Versus Allied Powers | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Georges Méliès |
Production company | |
Release date |
|
Running time | 20 meters Approx. 1 minute[1] |
| Country | France |
| Language | Silent |
Le Congrès des Nations en Chine, released in the US asChina Versus Allied Powers and in the UK asChina Versus the Allied Nations,[2] and also known asThe Congress of Nations in China: A Topical Creation andChina Against the Allies,[1] is a 1900 Frenchsilentsatiricaltrick film directed byGeorges Méliès. It was released by Méliès'sStar Film Company and is numbered 327 in its catalogues.[2]
According to a surviving catalogue description of the film:
A magician presents a circular piece of paper from which he removes the flags of the allies. Then from each flag he produces a soldier from the respective country, and finally he produces a Chinaman. But hardly have the allies seen the latter than they pounce on him and try to cut him into pieces. The funniest part of our story is that the Chinaman escapes in a balloon, with an expression of childish innocence on his face as the allies try to cut him up.[1]
The film, probably made in the late summer of 1900, satirizes the allied coalition (Germany,Austria-Hungary, theUnited States,France,Italy,Japan, theUnited Kingdom, andRussia) that was then staging military interventions inChina, shortly before theBoxer Rebellion. (The rebellion itself is not mentioned in the surviving description of the film, and probably postdates it.)[3]
By 1900, Méliès had already filmed numerous "reconstructed newsreels" (staged reenactments of current events) relating to war topics.China Against Allied Powers, though similarly topical, took a different stylistic route, representing the conflict symbolically.[1] Méliès, whose films often side with theunderdog (as is evidenced, for instance, in his film seriesThe Dreyfus Affair), reveals a pro-China stance in this film; this was a highly unusual position among European filmmakers, and indeed no other known film made at the time about the Chinese conflict portrays China sympathetically.[1]
The film is currently presumedlost.[2]
The American filmThe Congress of Nations, directed byJ. Stuart Blackton ofVitagraph Studios for theEdison Manufacturing Company and copyrighted in September 1900, has a very similar plot, and may have been modeled on Méliès's film.[3] Blackton's film, made in collaboration with the English magician and filmmakerAlbert E. Smith and featuring Smith onscreen, survives as apaper print.[4] Blackton and Smith also borrowed thedissolve technique used in the film from Méliès, who had pioneered it in his successful 1899 filmCinderella.[5] The magician in the Blackton version, having produced flags and personifications of the nations involved, allows his Allied soldiers to attack a nonmilitary "Chinese" character (actually a Vitagraph clerk, Morris Brenner) for a few moments before replacing the conflict with a huge American flag and a patriotic tableau.[6]
