Alice Guy-Blaché (Painting #7 of 13) “Influential Women”
Alice Guy-Blaché
1873 – 1968
1873 – 1968
“Be Natural”
Surely, Léon
Gaumont could not have foreseen the typist he hired to do clerical work
would turn out to be one of the most inventive and influential
filmmakers in the fledging years of the motion picture industry in
France. In 1896, after two years with Gaumont Films, Alice Guy was head
of production for the company. Under her direction, the first narrative
films were developed, a shift from the street scenes vignettes
heretofore popular subjects for audiences around the turn of the
century. By 1906 Alice was writing, directing and producing several
short films a week at Gaumont. A decade before D. W. Griffith’s seminal Birth of a Nation in the US, Alice made The Life of Christ,
one of the largest budget productions anywhere in its day. She has not
been properly credited for such cinematic first as: split screen, double
exposure, reversing shots, and for overseeing the development of
“Chronophone”, the first sound recordings synced with picture. In 1930,
Léon Gaumont published the history of his company with no mention of
Alice or any productions prior to 1907. Understandably upset, Alice,
wrote a letter to Gaumont, and he agreed to change the text to include
her contributions leading to the success of his company. These promised
changes never made it into print and were never published.
In 1907,
Alice Guy became Mrs. Alice Guy-Blaché, when she married the scoundrel,
Herbert Blaché, another Gaumont employee who worked as a production
manger. The newly weds set sail for America to head the Gaumont
company’s expansion into the US market. By 1910, the couple in
partnership with moneyman George A. Magie, felt secure enough in their
abilities to sever ties with Gaumont and form the largest pre-Hollywood
film company, Solax. First located in Flushing New York, the success of
their partnership soon saw them relocating to Fort Lee N.J., the
epicenter at the time for motion picture production. With Alice as
artistic director, and Herbert as production manager and
cinematographer, the company flourish under a large sign Alice had place
in the facility quoting her motto: “Be Natural.” Despite the
complications of being the mother of two young daughters, Alice, as head
of Solax, continued to write, direct and produce as many as three films
a week. In order to focus more on writing and directing, Alice put the
presidency of their company solely in Herbert’s hands. The exodus of
many of the Fort Lee film companies to the warmer, less expensive climes
of the West Coast, where they could escape the Edison patent thugs,
meant a decline in East Coast production and a decline in Solax’s
fortunes – as well as Alice and Herbert’s marriage. After starting
another company, Herbert deserted Alice and their two children and ran
off to Hollywood with one of his actresses.
Alice
briefly made films for William Randolf Hearst, but the loss of her
husband and the transplanting of the film industry to the West coast,
soon found Alice in bankruptcy. She returned to France with her
daughters and although for the next 30 years lectured and wrote about
film, Alice never made another movie. Alice Guy-Blaché’s twenty four
years in the industry and nearly one thousand films, were virtually
forgotten by the film community until she received the Légion d’honneur
(1953) in her native France. Barely a third of her work still exist
(mainly the films she directed featuring Charlie Chaplin), her legacy
has been revived by the New Jersey Film Commision with a monument in her
honor in Fort Lee, NJ, the site of her Solax studio. Her contrabutions
to the art of filmmaking have influenced and are evident in every film
that is made to this day.https://www.facebook.com/aliceguyblache
(Painting photo: Mark Serman)
© Laurence Revene, 2014