In 1900, Méliès made numerous films, including the 13-minute-long
Joan of Arc. He also made
The One-Man Band, in which Méliès continued to fine-tune his special effects by multiplying himself on camera to play seven instruments simultaneously. Another notable film was
The Christmas Dream, which merged cinematic effects with traditional Christmas pantomime scenes. In 1901, Méliès continued producing successful films and was at the peak of his popularity. His films that year included
The Brahmin and the Butterfly, in which Méliès portrays a
Brahmin who transforms a
caterpillar into a beautiful woman with wings, but is himself turned into a caterpillar. He also made the
féerie Red Riding Hood and
Blue Beard, both based on stories from
Charles Perrault. In
Blue Beard, Méliès plays the eponymous
wife-murderer and co-stars with
Jeanne d'Alcy and
Bleuette Bernon. The film is an early example of parallel cross-cutting and match cuts of characters moving from one room to the next. The Edison Company's 1902 film
Jack and the Beanstalk, directed by
Edwin S. Porter, was considered a less successful American version of several Méliès films, particularly
Blue Beard. That year, Méliès also made ''
L'Omnibus des toqués ou Blancs et Noirs (The Omnibus of Crazy People or Whites and Blacks
, entitled Off to Bloomingdale Asylum'' in the US), a
blackface burlesque that includes four white bus passengers transforming into one large black passenger, who is then shot by the bus driver. In 1902, Méliès began to experiment with camera movement to create the illusion of a character
changing size. He achieved this effect by "advancing the camera forward" on a pulley-drawn chair system, which was perfected to allow the camera operator to accurately adjust focus and for the actor to adjust his or her position in the frame as needed. This effect began with
The Devil and the Statue, in which Méliès plays
Satan and grows to the size of a
giant to terrorize
William Shakespeare's
Juliet, but then shrinks when the
Virgin Mary comes to the rescue of the
damsel in distress. This effect was used again in
The Man with the Rubber Head, in which Méliès plays a scientist who expands his own head to enormous proportions. This experiment, along with the others that he had perfected over the years, was used in his most well-known and beloved film later that year. In May 1902, Méliès made the film
A Trip to the Moon which was loosely based on
Jules Verne's 1865 novel
From the Earth to the Moon, its 1870 sequel
Around the Moon, and
H. G. Wells's 1901 novel
The First Men in the Moon. In the film, Méliès stars as Professor Barbenfouillis, a character similar to the astronomer he played in ''The Astronomer's Dream'' in 1898. Professor Barbenfouillis is the President of the Astronomer's Club and proposes an expedition to the Moon. A
space vehicle in the form of a large artillery shell is built in his laboratory, and he uses it to launch six men (including himself) on a voyage to the Moon. The vehicle is shot out of a large cannon into space and hits the
Man in the Moon in the eye. The group explores the Moon's surface before going to sleep. As they dream, they are observed by the
Moon goddess Phoebe, played by Bleuette Bernon, who causes it to snow. Later, while underground, they are attacked and captured by a group of Moon
aliens, played by acrobats from the
Folies Bergère. Taken before the alien king, they manage to escape and are chased back to their
spaceship. Then, with the aid of a rope attached to the spaceship, the men, along with an alien, fall from the Moon back to Earth, landing in the ocean (where a superimposed fish tank creates the illusion of the deep ocean). Eventually the spaceship is towed ashore and the returning adventurers are celebrated by the townspeople. The film was an enormous success in France and around the world, and Méliès sold both black-and-white and hand-coloured versions to exhibitors. The film made Méliès famous in the United States, where such producers as
Thomas Edison,
Siegmund Lubin and
William Selig had produced illegal copies and made large amounts of money from them. As
Charles Musser noted, "Lubin, Selig, and Edison catalogs from 1903–04 listed many dupes ... and gave particular prominence to Méliès films such as ...
A Trip to the Moon. Consequently, Méliès received but a small fraction of the considerable profits earned by the film through sales of prints and theater admissions. This
copyright violation caused Méliès to open a
Star Films office in New York City, with his brother
Gaston Méliès in charge. Gaston had been unsuccessful in the shoe business and agreed to join his more successful brother in the film industry. He travelled to New York in November 1902 and discovered the extent of the infringement in the U.S., such as
Biograph having paid royalties on Méliès's film to film promoter
Charles Urban. When Gaston opened the branch office in New York, it included a charter that partly read "In opening a factory and office in New York we are prepared and determined energetically to pursue all counterfeiters and pirates. We will not speak twice, we will act!" Gaston was assisted in the U.S. by Lucien Reulos, who was the husband of Gaston's sister-in-law, Louise de Mirmont. Méliès's great success in 1902 continued with his three other major productions of that year. In
The Coronation of Edward VII, Méliès reenacts the real-life
coronation of Edward VII. The film was shot prior to the actual event (since he was denied access to the coronation) and was commissioned by Charles Urban, head of the
Warwick Trading Company and the Star Films representative in London. The film was ready to be released on the day of the coronation; however, the event was postponed for six weeks due to Edward's health. This allowed Méliès to add actual footage of the carriage procession in the film. The film was financially successful and
Edward VII himself was said to have enjoyed it. Next, Méliès made the
féeries ''
Gulliver's Travels Among the Lilliputians and the Giants, based on the novel by Jonathan Swift, and Robinson Crusoe'', based on the
novel by
Daniel Defoe. In 1903, Méliès made
The Kingdom of the Fairies, which film critic Jean Mitry has called "undoubtedly Méliès's best film, and in any case the most intensely poetic". The
Los Angeles Times called the film "an interesting exhibit of the limits to which moving picture making can be carried in the hands of experts equipped with time and money to carry out their devices". Prints of the film survive in the film archives of the
British Film Institute and the U.S.
Library of Congress. Méliès continued the year by perfecting many of his camera effects, such as more fast-paced transformations in
Ten Ladies in One Umbrella and the seven superimpositions that he used in
The Melomaniac. He finished the year with
The Damnation of Faust, based on the
Faust legend. The film is loosely based on an opera by
Hector Berlioz, but it pays less attention to the story and more to the special effects that represent a tour of
hell. These include underground gardens, walls of fire and walls of water. In 1904, he made the sequel
Faust and Marguerite. This time, the film was based on an opera by
Charles Gounod. Méliès also created a combined version of the two films that aligned with the main
arias of the operas. He continued making "
high art" films later in 1904 such as
The Barber of Seville. These films were popular with both audiences and critics at the time of their release, and helped Méliès establish more prestige. His major production of 1904 was
The Impossible Voyage, a film similar to
A Trip to the Moon about an expedition around the world, into the oceans and even to the
Sun. In the film, Méliès plays Engineer Mabouloff of the Institute of Incoherent Geography, who is similar to the previous Professor Barbenfouillis. Mabouloff leads a group on the trip on the many Automobouloffs, the vehicles that they use of their travels. As the men are traveling up to the highest peaks of the
Alps, their vehicle continues moving upwards and takes them unexpectedly to the Sun, which has a face much like the man in the moon and swallows the vehicle. Eventually the men use a
submarine to launch back to planet
Earth and into the ocean. They are greeted back home by adoring admirers. The film was 24 minutes long and was a success. Film critic Lewis Jacobs has said that "the film expressed all of Méliès talents ... The complexity of his tricks, his resourcefulness with mechanical contrivances, the imaginativeness of the settings and the sumptuous tableaux made the film a masterpiece for its day." Later in 1904, Folies Bergère director
Victor de Cottens invited Méliès to create a special effects film to be included in his theatre's revue. The result was
An Adventurous Automobile Trip, a satire of
Leopold II of Belgium. The film was screened at the Folies Bergère before Méliès began to sell it as a Star Films production. In late 1904, Thomas Edison sued the American production company Paley & Steiner over copyright infringement for films that had stories, characters and even shot set-ups exactly like films that Edison had made. Edison also included
Pathé Frères, Eberhard Schneider and Star Films in this lawsuit for unspecified reasons. Paley & Steiner settled with Edison out of court (and were later bought out by Edison) and the case never went to trial. In 1905, Victor de Cottens asked Méliès to collaborate with him on
The Merry Deeds of Satan, a theatrical revue for the
Théâtre du Châtelet. Méliès contributed two short films for the performances, ''Le Voyage dans l'espace
(The Space Trip) and Le Cyclone'' (The Cyclone), and co-wrote the scenario with de Cottens for the entire revue. 1905 was also the 100th birthday of
Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, and the Théâtre Robert-Houdin created a special celebration performance, including Méliès's first new stage trick in several years,
Les Phénomènes du Spiritisme. At the same time, he was again remodeling and expanding his studio at Montreuil by installing electric lights, adding a second stage and buying costumes from other sources. Méliès's films for 1905 include the adventure
The Palace of the Arabian Nights and the
féerie ''
Rip's Dream, based on the Rip Van Winkle legend and the opera by Robert Planquette. In 1906, his output included an updated, comedic adaptation of the Faust legend The Merry Frolics of Satan and The Witch. The féerie'' style that Méliès was best known began to lose popularity, and he began to make films in other genres, such as
crime films and
family films. In the U.S., Gaston Méliès had to reduce the sale prices of three of Méliès's earlier, popular
féeries,
Cinderella,
Bluebeard and
Robinson Crusoe. By the end of 1905, Gaston had cut the prices of all films on the
Star Films catalog by 20%, which did improve sales. ==Later film career and decline==