Pasión por Alice Guy, la primera visionaria Figura completamente esencial en el nacimiento del arte cinematográfico,

Pasión por Alice Guy, la primera visionaria Figura completamente esencial en el nacimiento del arte cinematográfico, Alice Guy (1873-1968) representa además un caso paradigmático de la invisibilidad a la cual han sido sometidas las mujeres en las historias canónicas del cine.

Primera cineasta de la historia, dirigió su primer film, La Fée aux Choux, en 1896, a escasas semanas de primera exhibición pública del cinematógrafo de los hermanos Lumière. Considerado como una de las primeras expresiones de cine explícitamente narrativo, el mismo fue producto de la concepción pionera de Alice, una adelantada a su tiempo.

                                                                        Sin dudas el destino de la artista quedó marcado a fuego cuando a sus 21 años, el 22 de marzo de 1895, asistió en carácter de secretaria de Léon Gaumont a la primera demostración de la flamante invención de los hermanos Lumière, el cinematógrafo. Entusiasta desde ese minuto cero, fue la primera persona que vio al cine no como una simple herramienta científica o un divertimento de feria, sino como un verdadero medio de expresión artística, que no tenía nada que envidiarle a la literatura o el teatro. Visionaria, convenció a su jefe de redireccionar la empresa Gaumont, centrada originalmente en la fotografía fija, a la realización de imágenes en movimiento. Su jefe, inicialmente no muy convencido del nuevo invento, tuvo sin embargo la sabiduría de colocar a Alice al frente de ese nuevo proyecto. En tiempos donde los roles aún no tenían un nombre específico, Alice Guy creó el concepto y se convirtió en la primera jefa de producción de la historia, una de las tantas innovaciones que introduciría en la industria.

Las cifras son muy contundentes: Alice Guy dirigió por lo menos 700 películas (hay fuentes que señalan que la cifra supera las 1000) y produjo y escribió otros cientos más. Formó además a toda una generación de realizadores que la sucederían, entre los que se destacó Louis Feuillade, otro de los visionarios pioneres. En 1907, cuando Hollywood aun no existía, emigró a EE.UU. y fundó su propia productora, la Solax Film Co. Comprometida ideológicamente con el rol de las mujeres en el nuevo medio, en 1913 escribió un revelador artículo titulado “Woman's Place in Photoplay Production”, en el que denunció que la expansión del cine como industria comercial estaba llevando a la vulgarización del medio, por lo que era necesario el aporte urgente de las mujeres para revertir tal situación. Años antes, en 1906, había realizado Les résultats du féminisme, un adelantado cortometraje que desde la lúdica e irreverente inversión de roles buscó dejar en evidencia la matriz machista y patriarcal de la sociedad. Verdadera innovadora, introducía la palabra feminismo en el cine, cuando este era aún un concepto muy nuevo en la sociedad.

Debido a la desfortuna de las preservación cinematográfica, solo una parte de la inmensa producción de Alice se encuentra disponible en la actualidad, pero la misma ofrece sorpresas mayúsculas. Por ejemplo, su revelador film Alice Guy tourne une phonoscène (1905) nos permite verla en el set de rodaje, dirigiendo la puesta en escena, en lo que constituye en el primer making-off de la historia del cine. Notoria creadora de conceptos, su filmografía también nos permite evidenciar su profunda sensibilidad estética, nunca desatendida a pesar de lo prolífico de su producción

Ignorada durante más de un siglo por las historias canónicas —el caso más irritante es el de Roman Gubern, que en la edición 2014 de su afamada Historia del Cine le sigue dedicando apenas un (misógino) párrafo, en el que la reduce a "la secretaria de Gaumont"—, solo recientemente la figura de Alice Guy comenzó a tomar resonancia gracias a las valiosas investigaciones de distintas académicas comprometidas en comprender la historia del cine por afuera de las concepciones machistas.

Genia y visionaria, Alice Guy no fue solo la primera cineasta, sino también la primera persona cinéfila de la historia, la primera que comprendió a la emoción como el motor verdadero del medio. Todos los que amamos el cine le debemos mucho y es hora que la posicionemos como la figura esencial que nunca tendría que haber sido puesta en duda, a la par de los Lumière y Georges Méliès.
Publicación: Marzo 2016 por Sebastián Santillán http://www.marienbad.com.ar/articulo/alice-guy-la-primera-visionaria

Mme. Blache Allows No "Words, So That Actors Must Look, Not. Speak, Their Parts.THE director in the moving picture-world performs the same functionas does the stage manager in the theatrical world,

Mme. Blache Allows No "Words, So That Actors Must Look, Not.
Speak, Their Parts.THE director in the moving picture-world performs the same functionas does the stage manager in the
theatrical world, and there are as many the fact that a U5mS athe
stage manager ie Mg"" land, as can successfully lnvaev,rrlind to his
many a stage manager has t und tcns S5 !u STe has tried his...
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Alice Guy Blaché à Solax, Länsi-Suomen Lääni, Finland.

23 h ·

The Baffling Task of the Moving Picture Director Absence of Dialogue Makes Work Peculiarly Difficult; Good Stage Managers Not Always Good Directors Versatility of Frederick Thompson;
Mme. Blache Allows No "Words, So That Actors Must Look, Not.
Speak, Their Parts.THE director in the moving picture-world performs the same functionas does the stage manager in the
theatrical world, and there are as many the fact that a U5mS athe
stage manager ie Mg"" land, as can successfully lnvaev,rrlind to his
many a stage manager has t und tcns S5 !u STe has tried his
ha-?heiuempt usually results In rob, JJeter to pay Paul, but for the most SSf yocouXver convince th acr Jwf hia vu the case- And it is a
. , ao thatlhtbetter the actor the worse the director. DJal
The first, and perhaps the biggest, difficultv that the director runs up
against is the fact that he can depend ?fry litUe if at all. on dialogue to get rWts. And right here is whereso any wouldbe dfrectors come to grief. Frederick Thompson, director for the Ttagraph company, is an exponent of one of the successful methods of direct
ing and if you watch his work for a whUe when he is putting a picture on Tou Lgih to see where his success lies He expfains carefully to the actor what he wants him to do. and then shows
htai how to do it. But at the same time in order to bring out the ac :tor s origin ality he warns. "Don't imitate Thomp ton?' Fo7 he realizes that the teacher must be surpassed by the pupil, else his
work Is going to be purely imitative and often a poor imitation.
He works harder than any one in the company, acts out every part, when the actor or actress is not quite sure of himself, and directs from the manu script. No set dialogue is used, the actor "faking" his lines as he goes along, and Jn fact only using a few -words from time to time when ne wishes to emphasize some particular
point, generally at Thompson's sugges tion Thompson has his manuscript with him at all times, and refers to it
constantly. . ... i He leaves the "taking" end of the picture almost entirely to his camera man, Percy Hillburn. better known as "Sun
shine." on account of his flame colored hair. Sunshine is always on the Job and needs little or no coaching, and any director can tell yon what that means in the making of a picture. Thompson and Sunshine have recentbeen working together on a number
of animal pictures, and much patience; nd skill is needed, as well as many assistants armed with various implements of war, to get results. Not long ago Prince and Princess, two big Bengal tigers, were brought into a scene to wreck a room. They did the job, but not in the manner expected. At the start the tigers were to
make their entrance from the rear of the scene. Before the entrance they were let out of their cages and driven into a little room together. Then the action commenced. Princess decided that she didn't like
the cut of Prince's whiskers and told him so. She also sides wiped him across the nose. Prince retaliated by knocking her into a corner, and the family row was in full blast when the assistants

arrived -with effective Implements and effected an amnesty for a few minutes. Then the door to the "stage'' was
opened with the aid of a long "prop"and Princess sailed into the middle ofthings with a rush, upsetting Princeen route.was full of flying fur, claws and badlanguage. And it made a beautiful pic
ture, as Sunshine reeled away the yards of film from the outside. Prince took
the notion that he wanted to get closer
to the camera than the laws of photog raphy allowed; so he calmly laid him self down, out. 01 range 01 tne lens. The problem was to get him back into the picture. To move an S00 pound tiger with a beautiful set of claws and excellent teeth is somewhat of a Job; more so when the tiger objects to being moved. Prince objected strenuously. A 2x2 inch plank, used as a "persuader,"
splintered between his powerful jaws as the big teeth met with a click that
reminded you of steel tumblers shooting home across the edge of a sale, and Prince wouldn't move until the roar of a .44 Colt shattered the air in his very face. Then he backed away sullenly, tail
whipping flanks, ears flat back, and a smouldering green flame in either eye.
His low. humming snarl changed to a full throated A-r-r-r-a-hl as he caught
sight of Sunshine, and charged the camera. Sunshine grinned and turned the crank.
But director Thompson has his own ideas on directing animal acts, one of
them being "I'm going to be a fit sub ject for a sanitarium when I get through with this." In direct contrast to Thompson's methods of directing is the system used by Mme. Alice Blache, of the Solax company. Mme. Blache never uses manu script in her work, but familiarizes her
self thoroughly with the scenario. Then she reads the story to the players and
assigns each his part. Personally, she supervises the stage setting, coaches the camera men. artists, scene painters, property men, electricians and all others connected with the picture.
Mme. Blache does not believe in using any dialogue whatsoever. She tells her
players to think the part they are por traying and is c- nvinced that in thisway the thought registers itself on the players' faces, conveying the desired impression to the audience. - Madame never gets excited, whatever may go wrong, and if any of her direc tors loses his head for a moment she
pulls him up sharply.
TWO-PAKT MOTION- PICTURES ARE POPULAR FEATURES
The so-called "multiple reel feature film" is to the motion picture industry what the novelette is to the "short story" fiction magazine. In fact, the "short story" magazine was in a meas ure responsible for the inspiration which resulted in the production of mo
tion picture plays of more than one rceL For a long time, stories that required more than 1000 feet of film to relate were rejected by producers, under the theory that motion picture enthusiasts
would hardly look with favor on a film that was so long drawn out. Came a dav when a venturesome producer decttted to try the experiment of devoting more than a single film to a story of particular merit. The boycott of the public met his greatest fears.. For a long time exhibitors protested that it was a waste of time and effort to at tempt to educate the public to support the multiple reel photoplay. Yet the producers, who had made a careful study of the exhibiting business and who had in mind the success of ratlines that published a number of short stories every week, or month. In con
junction with one of greater length, believed that feature films would even-i tually come into their own. and be a I part of the pro-" in every modern i motion picture theater.! That the evolution of the business has been as they predicted Is shown in the fact that practically every week brings the announcement of a score or
more of films longer than 1000 feet in length. "When it is remembered that films of this class frequently cost as
high as $50,000 to produce, with a min imum production cost of $1000 per reel, it is plainly seen that producers are