Filmmaker Georges Méliès employed some of his signature special effects techniques to create comedy in “Gugusse and the Automaton” A still from “Gugusse and the Automaton” showing the magician and his robot, Pierrot National Audio-Visual Conservation Center In a battered trunk full of his great-grandfather’s nitrate film rolls, a Michigan man discovered a relic of filmmaking history: a copy of “ Gugusse and the Automaton ,” a long-lost 45-second film by French auteur Georges Méliès , a pioneer of early cinema. The slapstick short film, created around 1897, was famous for containing the very first on-screen appearance of a robot—preceding the term itself by more than two decades. But no watchable copies of the film were known to survive. Last fall, however, retired teacher Bill McFarland of Grand Rapids brought his great-grandfather’s collection to the Library of Congress’  National Audio-Visual Conservation Center .…