Anyone who has already seen or plans to see Martin Scorsese‘s wonderful new film should check out this website for more on Méliès. The character of René Tabard is entirely fictitious – but possibly the definitive work on him (which I happen to own) was actually written by his granddaughter.
I plan to see the film again – appropriately, in all respects, in 3D!
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Filed under: French film industry, US film industry, Hugo, Martin Scorsese, Méliès
René Tabard is not entirely fictitious. There was a small coterie of admirers, journalists (Brasillach), writers (Frapa), directors (René Clair), cinema club organizer (Langlois).
I think this a pun on the Fabienne Tabard character in Baisers Volés by Truffaut, an habitué and defendor of Langlois’ Cinénathèque. It might be a fictitious name but most likely he was Robert Brasillach who spent a lot of time with Méliès in the 30′s interviewing him for his book on the history of cinema. As he became later an unrepentant antisemitic intellectual right winger during the German Occupation, something Hollywood would normally find unpalatable, hence the Tabard pun (Tabard inverted in French becomes Batârd = bastard). All the same the movie in 3D is awesome.