Underplayed Gems

Let Me Dream Again (1900)

Let Me Dream Again poster
Directed by
George Albert Smith
Genre
short film, drama film, comedy film, silent film
Country
United Kingdom
Runtime
1 min
Rating
5.7 of 10 from 55 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

A man dreams of a beautiful young woman. He wakes up next to his wife.

playfuldreamlikewhimsicalbittersweetlightheartedinventivenostalgic

What happens

Let Me Dream Again is a 1900 British short silent drama film, directed by George Albert Smith, featuring a man dreaming about an attractive young woman and then waking up next to his wife. The film stars Smith's real wife, Laura Bayley, as the woman of his fantasies. Bayley would later appear in Smith's 1903 film Mary Jane's Mishap. The film, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "is an excellent example of an early two-shot film, and is particularly interesting for the way it attempts a primitive dissolve by letting the first shot slip out of focus before cutting to the second shot, which starts off out of focus and gradually sharpens." This appears to be the first use of a dissolve transition to signify a movement of a dreaming state to one of reality. Of further interest is the camera composition of the husband and wife in bed. The bed is placed upright against a wall and in front of a camera that is fixed to the floor, giving the appearance of two people lying in bed, when in reality they are standing. The film was shot in Smith's own studio, the former pump house at St Ann's Well Gardens in Hove. The film was remade by Ferdinand Zecca for Pathé as Dream and Reality (1901). (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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