The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon

A whimsical Méliès fantasy that uses an eclipse and celestial mechanics as a vehicle for playful moral instruction about the limits of human knowledge and the mysteries of the cosmos.

In this film, Méliès concocts a combination fairy- and morality tale about the foolishness of trying to look too deeply into the workings of an unstable and inscrutable universe. At a medieval school, an old astronomer begins to teach a class of young men, all armed with telescopes, about the art of scrutinising an imminent eclipse. When a mechanical clock strikes twelve, all the young men rush to the windows and fix their telescopes on the heavens.