SOURCE: "George Méliès," in Film Biographies, Turtle Island, No. 1977, pp. 15-34.

In the following excerpt, Brakhage explores possible biographical sources of inspiration for Méliès work.

Now let me say it to you simply as I can: the search for an art . . . either in the making or the appreciation . . . is the most terrifying adventure imaginable: it is a search always into unexplored regions; and it threats the soul with terrible death at every turn; and it exhausts the mind utterly; and it leaves the body moving, moving endlessly through increasingly unfamiliar terrain: there is NO hope of return from the territory discovered by this adventuring; and there is NO hope of rescue from the impasse where such a search may leave one stranded.

It is not without cause that parents shudder when a child of theirs expresses the wish to become an Artist: they will...