In March, month dedicated to women, I was pleased to see this documentary that gives a select overview of the life and work of French filmmaker Alice Guy (also known as Alice Guy-Blaché, by her married name), her place and most significant contributions to the evolution of cinema.
Narrated by Jodie Foster, I am surprised that director Pamela B. Green recognizes the appearance of Louis Lumière's cinematograph in 1895 as the moment in which cinema was born with technical strength and the ability to communicate, inform and entertain. It was Alice's turn as a young worker at the Gaumont company to make «The Cabbage Fairy» in 1896, the first fictional film made by a woman that is known to this day; experimenting with sound and painted film, prioritizing the motto "Be natural" as a method of acting among performers adept at posing in front of the cameras, becoming a powerful businesswoman in the United States, pioneering in directing an all-African-American cast in a movie, and introducing a feminine vision in her stories, as in her successful «The Life of Christ» (1906), in which she privileged the relationship of Jesus with the women around him.
However, Alice Guy died without having received the recognition she deserved for her work in France and the United States. In 1920 she made her last film, she divorced her husband Herbert Blaché and returned to France with her two children. A decade in the United States was enough to be forgotten in her native country and gradually her name was erased from the history of the Gaumont studios and, worse still, from the history of cinema, a situation aggravated by the crediting of some of her films to male directors and the loss of many of her movies. Until her death in 1968 Alice Guy tried to find them, but she died without rectifying the denial of her merits, without publishing her memoirs or recovering her place in the history of cinema. "My youth, my lack of experience, my sex," she once declared, "all conspired against me."
The documentary is often fascinating, following director Green's search for lost memory, traces, letters, photos, audio recordings, videotapes in disuse (such as U-Matic), film clips, testimonials from relatives, friends, specialists and colleagues, on both sides of the Atlantic... Alice Guy would be very pleased.
Narrated by Jodie Foster, I am surprised that director Pamela B. Green recognizes the appearance of Louis Lumière's cinematograph in 1895 as the moment in which cinema was born with technical strength and the ability to communicate, inform and entertain. It was Alice's turn as a young worker at the Gaumont company to make «The Cabbage Fairy» in 1896, the first fictional film made by a woman that is known to this day; experimenting with sound and painted film, prioritizing the motto "Be natural" as a method of acting among performers adept at posing in front of the cameras, becoming a powerful businesswoman in the United States, pioneering in directing an all-African-American cast in a movie, and introducing a feminine vision in her stories, as in her successful «The Life of Christ» (1906), in which she privileged the relationship of Jesus with the women around him.
However, Alice Guy died without having received the recognition she deserved for her work in France and the United States. In 1920 she made her last film, she divorced her husband Herbert Blaché and returned to France with her two children. A decade in the United States was enough to be forgotten in her native country and gradually her name was erased from the history of the Gaumont studios and, worse still, from the history of cinema, a situation aggravated by the crediting of some of her films to male directors and the loss of many of her movies. Until her death in 1968 Alice Guy tried to find them, but she died without rectifying the denial of her merits, without publishing her memoirs or recovering her place in the history of cinema. "My youth, my lack of experience, my sex," she once declared, "all conspired against me."
The documentary is often fascinating, following director Green's search for lost memory, traces, letters, photos, audio recordings, videotapes in disuse (such as U-Matic), film clips, testimonials from relatives, friends, specialists and colleagues, on both sides of the Atlantic... Alice Guy would be very pleased.