An ambitious film about pioneering film producer, director, and screenwriter Alice Guy-Blaché, and I have to say, the long overdue light that director Pamela B. Green shines on her is heartwarming. It's clearly a labor of love, and the number of people Green brings in and how worldwide this project was is impressive. The documentary sometimes ventures a little bit too far into the backstory of how all of the information was collected, and that's occasionally interesting too, but I would have preferred it to stick to Guy-Blaché, her films, and the direct influence she had with others in the industry. It also goes a little overboard with all of the graphic animations and overlays perhaps meant to bring life to the story, which wasn't necessary.
With that said, the film does get across enough of this fantastic woman's work and her personal life to be compelling. We see great clips showing her brilliant approach to directing actors ("Be Natural"), her humanism and sense of comedic timing, and her scene compositions and some special effects, which made me want to seek out more from her. I also liked the bits showing the influence on Eisenstein, the quote from Hitchcock, and how some of it was related to movies and comedy from the recent past, e.g. Juno and Andy Samberg from Saturday Night live. And by telling the story as Green did, we see not only how difficult it was to unearth the truth, but also the monstrous injustice that took place in the writing Guy-Blaché out of history by men over the decades that followed her career. It's quite infuriating, and a reminder of how important it is to scrutinize those who are writing history.
With that said, the film does get across enough of this fantastic woman's work and her personal life to be compelling. We see great clips showing her brilliant approach to directing actors ("Be Natural"), her humanism and sense of comedic timing, and her scene compositions and some special effects, which made me want to seek out more from her. I also liked the bits showing the influence on Eisenstein, the quote from Hitchcock, and how some of it was related to movies and comedy from the recent past, e.g. Juno and Andy Samberg from Saturday Night live. And by telling the story as Green did, we see not only how difficult it was to unearth the truth, but also the monstrous injustice that took place in the writing Guy-Blaché out of history by men over the decades that followed her career. It's quite infuriating, and a reminder of how important it is to scrutinize those who are writing history.