It's a movie truism that when the facts and the legend conflict, you print the legend. Likewise, history is written by the victors. No Macauley ever wrote lays about ancient Carthage. Finally, when telling a story, keep it simple. That's how Alice Guy vanished for almost a century.
It's easy to attribute her becoming a non-person to sexism, and that's part of it, but other important figures are obscure. Who was Woodville Latham? Who screens the movies of George A. Smith? Those who survived and prospered told a story in which they had done it all, inventing everything, making great movies -- which you probably not have seen -- and fighting evil Thomas Edison all the while. That's a legend with a proper villain and all. Print it and forget the rest.
That's how we have forgotten the woman who may have been not just the first woman movie director, but the first movie director, full stop; first supervising producer of Gaumont's film studio, for fifteen years. An early innovator in demanding naturalistic performance; in color movies; second producer and director of a series of sound films -- the first was an Englishman who produced about a dozen in 1900, and then vanished -- likewise forgotten; the first woman to own her own studio. All of the evidence was here, just scattered across two continents, a dozen archives, and great-grandchildren's attics.
It's a remarkable story, very well told. I especially appreciated the montages and graphics. Maybe it will inspire you to seek out Madame's movies, which are likewise emerging from archives and other people's names. Some of them are excellent.
It's easy to attribute her becoming a non-person to sexism, and that's part of it, but other important figures are obscure. Who was Woodville Latham? Who screens the movies of George A. Smith? Those who survived and prospered told a story in which they had done it all, inventing everything, making great movies -- which you probably not have seen -- and fighting evil Thomas Edison all the while. That's a legend with a proper villain and all. Print it and forget the rest.
That's how we have forgotten the woman who may have been not just the first woman movie director, but the first movie director, full stop; first supervising producer of Gaumont's film studio, for fifteen years. An early innovator in demanding naturalistic performance; in color movies; second producer and director of a series of sound films -- the first was an Englishman who produced about a dozen in 1900, and then vanished -- likewise forgotten; the first woman to own her own studio. All of the evidence was here, just scattered across two continents, a dozen archives, and great-grandchildren's attics.
It's a remarkable story, very well told. I especially appreciated the montages and graphics. Maybe it will inspire you to seek out Madame's movies, which are likewise emerging from archives and other people's names. Some of them are excellent.