‘Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché’ tells the story of the world’s first woman filmmaker, Alice Guy. But with over 1,000 films produced that span two decades in both Europe and America, the director seeks to find out why is it that so few people know about Alice Guy-Blaché’?
Be Natural is an investigative documentary as much as it as a biography about the first woman in cinema. Director Pamela Green spent 8 years rigorously gathering research on Alice’s life to interrogate why Alice was left out of film history. Green makes the audience apart of the investigative process as she visually displays Ancestry.com searches, google searches, maps, old handwritten letters, and family trees on the screen throughout the film. The director also interviews several film historians, experts, and current filmmakers to gain the full scope of Alice’s life, the times Alice was living in, and the impact Alice had on film. Together with old interviews of Alice Guy herself, Green was able to gain an understanding as to why and how this woman was left out of film history.
Alice Guy began her career as a stenographer and secretary to Léon Gaumont. Gaumont was one amongst many inventors racing to perfect and industrialize motion picture technology. But it was the Lumière Brothers of France who beat everyone to the punch, became the very first filmmakers, and patented the cinematograph. Alice herself got to see the first ever motion picture debut made with the new technology. At first, motion pictures featured scenes from everyday life that were quite mundane. There was little excitement around documenting everyday life and so no one thought cinematography would last forever. But this was where Alice Guy stepped in and revolutionized cinema.
Alice Guy became the first ever person in the world to produce a fictional narrative-driven motion picture in her first feature film, The Cabbage Fairy, 1896. Alice wrote, directed, produced, and starred in The Cabbage Fairy where she played a mythical folklore creature that birthed babies from cabbage patches. To make the picture, all Alice needed was basic props, help from local friends, and a small garden to film in. This marked the beginning of Alice creating numerous films for the Gaumont film production company.
But Alice was not just a pioneer for being the first person to direct, write, and produce a fictional narrative film. She was also a pioneer for her original creating styles and techniques that the film industry still utilizes today, such as close up shots, hand-tinted color styles, and synchronized sound. Alice’s most critically acclaimed film in France was a 25 episode and 300 people cast of The Birth, Life, and Death of Christ 1906, where she utilized special effects and movements of the camera to get the appearance of Jesus’ ascension into heaven. However, Alice most impressive skill was her ability to tell complex stories in only a few short minutes that centered around themes of parenthood, pregnancy, womanhood, sexism, seduction, immigration, and labor conflict. Alice was ahead of her time and saw the important role cinema could play in social and political commentary.
So why don’t many people in the film industry know about Alice and why has her filmography resided in obscurity for so long? Alice married another Gaumont film production employee, Herbert Blanche. They married and moved to the United States where they eventually founded their own movie production company in Fort Lee, New Jersey —Solax Studios, in 1910. Solax Studios was successful for a long time but as the marriage between Alice and Herbert became strained, so did their working relationship and Solax eventually became bankrupt. Herbert and Alice divorced, and Alice moved back to France with her children after producing her last film in America in 1922. Having spent so much time in America, Alice goes comes back to France realizing that her memory and influence there had become largely forgotten. Alice tries to find work in France, but her old age leaves her undesired. What’s worse is that as the history of French cinema starts to become documented, Alice finds that her male counterparts have blatantly erased her and misattributed her work. Also, many of Alice’s films become physically lost, dispersed among film collectors, or destroyed during the World Wars.
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché is a documentary that speaks to the importance of preserving women’s history. When women are left out, an incomplete retelling of history is told. Protecting the work and memory of women like Alice Guy ultimately lays the foundation for protecting the works of female filmmakers in the future. Alice Guy spent the remainder of her life trying to get her memoir published to correct misconceptions about her contribution to film. Unfortunately, she passed without getting the chance. Be Natural remedies this by ensuring Alice is finally and forever properly given the credit she deserves.
Be Natural premiered at the Cannes, Telluride, New York, Deauville and London Film Festivals in 2018. It will open in Los Angeles on April 19, 2019, and New York on April 26 with a nationwide release to follow.
Co-Written, Directed and Produced by Pamela B. Green, Executive produced by Geralyn Dreyfous, Jodie Foster, Hugh M. Hefner, John Ptak, Robert Redford, Regina K. Scully, Joan Simon, and Jamie Wolf, Narrated by Jodie Foster
Featuring interviews with Patty Jenkins, Diablo Cody, Ben Kingsley, Geena Davis, Ava DuVernay, Michel Hazanavicius, Evan Rachel Wood, and Julie Delpy among many others.