In 2022, the University of Michigan Press published Madeleine Malthête-Méliès’ Magnificent Méliès: The Authorized Biography, translated by Kel Pero, nearly fifty years after the publication of the first edition in French. This book would not have been possible without a dynamic international and multigenerational collaboration that connected several talented, highly motivated Michigan undergraduates with Méliès family members, archivists, curators, and collectors in five countries.
When Magnificent Méliès was published in hardcover, it was extremely gratifying to have the former director of La Tour Verte, Robert deLaroche, say that we had “built a bridge between France and the United States” with the book. With additional help from two former FTVM undergraduates, technician Dylan Hancook and musician Joey Pecoraro, we marked this milestone with a Zoom book launch on September 29, 2022 co-sponsored by UROP and the Ross Business School. This celebration of our collaboration took place in the Ross White Light Studio and featured a newly rediscovered Méliès film, Marvellous Suspension and Evolution (1902) not widely seen for 120 years. A recording of the event can be seen here.
Above text extracted from Michigan Publishing's "Magnificent Méliès: Making Magic with Undergraduate and International Collaborators."
To access this full story and learn about the collaborators and Solomon's publications, please click here.
" I am extremely proud of the two Méliès books we published in 2022, but it is the great work with international partners and undergraduate collaborators during the previous three years which I recall most fondly—truly a 'magical' experience."
--Professor Matthew Solomon