"The New Lord of the Village": A Misidentification

"The New Lord of the Village" was among numerous films to be released as part of the extraordinary, all-inclusive "Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema" DVD set back in 1908. The reviews on this page are all written by people who have seen this film on disc four of the set (which comprises mainly slapstick comedies and melodramas directed by Méliès and his production assistant Manuel) - a nine-minute, three-scene morality tale that serves largely as a device for a number of camera tricks. However, as with plenty of other early rediscovered shorts, this film that most have viewed is a misidentification, a film that was pointed out by film historian David Bond as actually being a completely different short.

On the same set, located in disc five which comprises only ten films, is included an unidentified film fragment of a 1908 short - the same year Méliès produced "The New Lord of the Village". I had long speculated as to the title of this short, first thinking of it as being a lost or cut scene from the filmmaker's second adaptation of Cinderella from 1912. But, this being a reasonable identification in visual look only (since it featured similarities in set and costume design but otherwise made no logical sense) I then took up the theory that the one-and-a-half minute fragment was a scene from the 1908 film by Méliès I had not seen entitled "Tribulation; or, the Misfortunes of a Cobbler." This made much more sense, so much so that I identified it as such in my IMDb list of films from the DVD set. The brief scene includes a large crowd of people at a wedding, which then leaves the scene only for a man, dressed as what seems to be a cobbler, to enter and drink copious amounts of alcohol before the crowd returns and finds him drunk. The events seemed to make sense overall with the title, and thus for a long time I believed it to be that film.

However, according to Bond, the identity of these two shorts is mixed up. The film on the box set identified as "The New Lord of the Village", when first discovered, had on it the label of the other 1908 film, "Tribulation; or, the Misfortunes of a Cobbler". Analyzing the unidentified fragment, the film historian came to the conclusion that that fragment was actually a scene from the former film, and that the nine-minute morality tale that most identify as "Le nouveau seigneur du village" is in fact an unknown title, not "Tribulation" or any other film. This would make sense to me when one further considers the fact that "No Trifling With Love" was an alternate title to this film, and the short reviewed on this IMDb page has nothing to do with romance in any way, while the fragment included a wedding that would fit the title better. In any case, judging the short clip that is apparently left of "The New Lord of the Village" is hard, considering the confusing action and the lack of context; but at least future reviewers should be aware of this misidentification and ignore the film on the set as being neither short.

The fantasy genre features imaginative and often magical worlds, characters, and events. It explores realms beyond the boundaries of reality, featuring elements such as magic, mythical creatures, supernatural powers, and fantastical settings. These stories can take place in entirely fictional worlds or blend fantastical elements with real-world settings.

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The short form refers to creative works characterized by their brevity and concise storytelling. Unlike full-length feature films, short films have a running time of less than 45 minutes, while TV shorts have a running time of less than 22 minutes.

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A rich lord is led by a gypsy to a cave, where a spirit makes him poor and the two poor men that accompanied him are made rich. Later the lord is spared and turned back to his former rich self.

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The New Lord of the Village

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