The Witch (1906) watch online

The Witch (French: La Fée Carabosse ou le Poignard fatal, literally "The Fairy Carabosse or the Fatal Poignard") is a 1906 French short silent film by Georges Méliès. The film is named for a witch, Carabosse, who tells a poor troubadour that he is destined to rescue a damsel in distress, but demands a high price for a magic charm to help the troubadour in his quest. When the troubadour cheats the witch to obtain the magic charm, she sets out in pursuit of him, and puts various obstacles in his way before finally being vanquished by forces of good.

The film, said to have been inspired by Breton folklore, combines the traditional figure of Carabosse—first created in a 17th-century literary fairy tale by Madame d'Aulnoy—with a varied array of other magical and legendary elements, including ghosts, Druids, and monstrous beasts. It was commissioned by the Grands Magasins Dufayel department store, for children to watch while their parents shopped. Méliès made the film as a lavish, special-effects-heavy spectacle in the féerie tradition, possibly appearing in it himself. A print of the film survives; historians have commented on the film's spectacular qualities, its hodgepodge of fairy-tale attractions, and the ambiguous question of whether Carabosse's defeat is morally justified in the world of the film.

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