🌼🌻 BRASSICA 🌻🌼
Brassica est un hommage à Alice Guy, cinéaste pionnière longtemps oubliée, et s'inscrit dans le cadre d’un projet plus vaste de festival sur les figures féminines marquantes du cinéma. Ce court-métrage de fiction s’inspire de recherches et d’archives sur l’univers d'Alice Guy pour raconter l’histoire de la création en 1896 de La fée au choux, évoquant ainsi les principales étapes de la préparation d’un film, de l’imaginaire à la magie finale de l'image.
ELISA MANOHAContact : elisa.manoha@gmail.com
Don't Confuse Solax with Gaumont: Much misunderstanding has recently resulted from a confusion of the Solax and Gaumont interests. Madame Alice Blache, the president of the Solax Company, has decided to dispel the false impression which may exist in the minds of many by the issue of the following signed statement: Flushing, New York, January 22nd, 1912 Gentlemen: We wish to protest vigorously against the allegations being made to the effect that the Solax Company and the Gaumont Company are allied in business. The only relation which exists is a family one. Mrs. Blache being president of the Solax Co. and Mr. Blache manager of the Gaumont Company of New York. This is the only relation existing between the two companies. The Solax Co. received its charter September 7th 1910, through the attorneys, Goldie & Gumm of 27 William St., New York City, who will give complete information to any person desiring it. It is true that the Solax Co. has in the past rented the Gaumont studio and all developing and printing has been done in the Gaumont plant, but this has been strictly on a cash business basis and under the same condition as many other moving picture concerns have had their work done by the Gaumont Co. We have recently purchased a large piece of land in Fort Lee, New Jersey, where we are constructing our own studio and where we will shortly be installed in very much larger and better quarters than we have at present. We trust that you will attach to this communication the importance which it merits, and believe in our sincerity in making these statements to you. Yours very truly, SOLAX COMPANY, Alice Blache, President.
Simone Blaché was born on September 6, 1908. She was an actress, known for The Violin Maker of Nuremberg (1911), Blood and Water (1913) and The Silent Feminists: America's First Women Directors (1993). She died on September 8, 1994 in Millrift, Pennsylvania, USA.
Daughter of Alice Guy #motherofcinema and Herbert Blaché. Photo Regine Blache Bolton
One of The Few Women Who Stage Moving Picture Productions
The boxes were filled with men and women in evening dress, an orchestra was playing, and the floor of the Solax studio in Fort Lee was crowded with dancers in carnival attire, as Madame Alice Blache, who has the distinction of being one of the few women staging moving picture productions, gave instructions to her assistant who distributed confetti and favors to be hurled at the dancers as they passed. The production, shortly to be released, is “The Empress,” with Hobart Blinn and Doris Kenyon in the title roles.
Seldom has a more gorgeous setting been used than this one, in which several hundred persons appear, and is the first production to be staged since the completion of the new studio.
Madame Blache, with the artistic temperament of a French woman, leaves no unfinished detail, and the harmonious arrangement, the blending and adaptation of color, lend a charm that captivates and reveals unmistakably the skill of a woman.
As one of the company in the production, I had ample opportunity to observe Madame Blache as she worked and throughout the entire day her quiet repose of manner, coupled with her quick, keen perception, enabled those who sere participating in the forthcoming picture drama to respond instantly to her slightest wish.
The scene of the play is laid in India. Resplendent in jewels and a drapery that reveals the outline of her symmetry, an Indian princess is carried in an ensemble procession in a sedan chair, by six dark-skinned coolies.
An Indian prince wearing the costume of the country and yellow turban is borne on the back of a black charger, and the animal not having the proper appreciation of orchestral music in a studio, capered so that it _____
Seated high up on a ladder that led to an improvised platform where the camera men clicked, Madame Blache seemed to live in the very spirit of it all, her eyes noting every movement of what was happing in the studio, and at the same time seeming to hold in imagination a glimpse of far away India.
Rehearsal was suspended for luncheon. The players in costume seated themselves in groups on the floor, and they and the occupants of the boxes were served with sandwiches and coffee.
Visitors were admitted during the afternoon, and Madame Blache was a gracious hostess and chatted with them for a few moments apparently unmindful that several hundred persons were waiting to be told what to do next. Madame also had time to bestow a kiss on her little son, Reggie, who was brought to the studio following luncheon, together with his older sister, Simone.
An attractive house on the left side of the street that leads to the Solax studio is the residence of Madame Blache. Here she does much of her writing when no staging and directing a production. The work of this energetic little French woman but demonstrated that another new field has been opened in the realm of woman’s achievements.
“Cinema Sanctuary Study 2: Alice Guy's 1897 Serpentine Dance. Sabrina Gschwandtner . Films footage courtesy of Alice Guy Fondation
A tiny white-haired woman with a sweet face and gentle manner, incredibly enough, can claim the honor of being the first woman director of motion pictures. Over a glass of dubonnet the little lady in black silk with embroidered blue inserts in the sleeves and a touch of yellow chiffon at the throat recalled highlights of her career.
Alice Guy Blache who lives quietly today in her Georgetown apartment was a dominant figure in the early days of the motion picture industry.
As early as 1896, she was a director in Paris. For 17 years she was the only woman director in the world.
In 1900 she received the diploma of collaborator at the Paris Universal Exposition. In 1904 in St. Louis the gold medal, again the gold medal in Leige in 1905, the following year in Milan and in 1907 in Paris she was handed the academie palms as theatrical poducer.
Saved Autographs
Among her mementos are autographed photographs of Dolores Costello, Olga Petrova, Holbrook Blynn, Bessie Love, May Allison, Frank Keenan and many others whom she’s directed.
A “flashback” in Mme Blache’s life would show her as Alice Guy going to school in her native Paris.
When she was 22 her father died. To help support her mother, Alice studied stenography. Her first job was with a scientist named Leon Gaumont, who managed a photographic company.
One day, M. Demeny, a college professor who had invented a camera which would photograph motion came to see M. Gaumont.
It would photograph one motion, then stop; then another and stop.
Two others who knew M. Gaumont were Louis and August Lumiere of Lyon who made the first motion picture film in the world. That was in 1896.”
Mme. Blache witnessed this first motion picture.
Later Gaumont perfected both film and projector.
Plays on Films
About that time, Mme. Blache was interested in amateur theatricals. “I suggested to him that I put some plays on films,” she recalled.
“I took pictures of my friends performing on a small platform in our garden.
These shorts were so successful that Gaumont decided to build a studio. In 1902 he attempted to make the first talking picture.
“Of course, they were not like today’s,” says Mme. Blache. “They were not so scientific or advanced. He synchronized the picture with gramophone records.”
Mme Blache made 100 talking pictures for Gaumont.
She married Mr. Herbert Blache, an Englishman who headed the German branch of the Gaumont Company.
Her Own Studio.
In 1906, Gaumont asked Mr. Blache to represet him in America and built a small studio in Flushing L.I. for talking and silent pictures.
After approoximately two years in Flushing, Mme. Blache built her own studio the Solax, at Fort Lee, N.J.
There she was president of her company and director of productions. After her husband’s contract with Gaumont expired, he joined his wife at the Solax Studios.
Between them they produced a picture every month, using players from their stock company. They were sole owners and directors from 1900-1918.
“In those days,” says Mme. Blache, “a director was everything. He wrote the scenarios, chose the actors, selected the costumes, supervised the building of the sets, mounted and titled the films as well as directed them.”
Pathe, Metro and other companies bought the films produced by the Blaches at Solax Studios.
Mme. Blache returned to France in 1924. In 1952 she came back to this country to make her home here in Washington with her daughter Simone who works for the State Department.Director Alice Guy Blache is thinking about turning writer long enough to capture her memoirs on paper.
