Ze sceny na ekran kinowy: zniknięcie damy
From Stage to Cinema Screen: the Vanishing of a Lady

Summary/Abstract: The article is devoted to the detailed anatomy of Georges Méliès’s basic trick, first presented at the Robert-Houdin Theater as variétés, and later, in the form of a substitute technique, transferred to “Escamotage d’une dame chez Robert-Houdin” (1896). The author follows the tension between the illusion of the stage and the tricks of substitution in film, pointing to the intermedia nature of the effect that combined the stage illusion with the cinema, which turned Méliès into the author of both theater and the cinema. Paech also points to its vitality in contemporary cinema, analyzing various strategies for adaptation of substitution tricks in films such as “Prestige” (2006) by Christopher Nolan, “The Lady Vanishes” (1938) by Alfred Hitchcock, “Scoop – Hot Topic” (2006) and “Magic in the Moonlight” (2014) by Woody Allen and “The New York Stories” (1989) by Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Woody Allen.

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