🌼🌻 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
