SCFZ

flip wrote: ↑Sat Jul 20, 2019 7:49 pm yes, asquith looks good! if he's your choice, he'll be our next poll

wba wrote: ↑Sat Jul 20, 2019 8:51 am that Blaché guy

bure420 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 22, 2019 3:51 pm no that's an excellent joke. totally had me fooled too on the first read through, did a double-take before i got it

The first woman filmmaker and among the first to direct a fiction film. The nearly one thousand films she produced had a significant impact on the development of filmic storytelling. She trained the best of the second generation of French filmmakers, including Victorin Jasset, Emile Arnaud, Romeo Bosetti, and Louis Feuillade.

She began her film career as office manager to Leon Gaumont in 1895 and was present at the March 1895 demonstration of the CInematographe Lumiere. She probably began making films herself in the spring of 1896 and was quickly put in charge of the Gaumont company's film production. Her specific goal was to apply literary narrative techniques to film.

In 1907, she married Gaumont manager Herbert Blache. Blache was transferred to the USA and eventually became manager of Gaumont's Flushing studio in New York. In 1910, Guy founded her own company, Solax, using the Flushing studio to produce films that then were distributed through Gaumont's licensed connections. Solax was critically and financially successful enough for Guy to build her own studio in Fort Lee in 1912; she became perhaps the only woman in the world to have owned her own studio plant.

The Solax Company foundered when Gaumont's access to licensed distribution was cut off, and from 1915 Guy worked for her husband's company, Blache Features, and as a director for hire... After Blache Features went bankrupt and her marriage ended in 1920, she returned to France and never made another film.

Evelyn wrote: ↑Mon Jul 22, 2019 10:14 pm
Selections from Alisan McMahan's entry in Encyclopedia of Early Cinema:

The first woman filmmaker and among the first to direct a fiction film. The nearly one thousand films she produced had a significant impact on the development of filmic storytelling. She trained the best of the second generation of French filmmakers, including Victorin Jasset, Emile Arnaud, Romeo Bosetti, and Louis Feuillade.

She began her film career as office manager to Leon Gaumont in 1895 and was present at the March 1895 demonstration of the CInematographe Lumiere. She probably began making films herself in the spring of 1896 and was quickly put in charge of the Gaumont company's film production. Her specific goal was to apply literary narrative techniques to film.

In 1907, she married Gaumont manager Herbert Blache. Blache was transferred to the USA and eventually became manager of Gaumont's Flushing studio in New York. In 1910, Guy founded her own company, Solax, using the Flushing studio to produce films that then were distributed through Gaumont's licensed connections. Solax was critically and financially successful enough for Guy to build her own studio in Fort Lee in 1912; she became perhaps the only woman in the world to have owned her own studio plant.

The Solax Company foundered when Gaumont's access to licensed distribution was cut off, and from 1915 Guy worked for her husband's company, Blache Features, and as a director for hire... After Blache Features went bankrupt and her marriage ended in 1920, she returned to France and never made another film.

How, I wonder, will I pick only five of her fascinating films to vote for? Currently at 57 seen and I'd label 10 personal favs; I'll have to put 'em in a hat and close my eyes..

kanafani wrote: ↑Mon Jul 22, 2019 4:03 pm

bure420 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 22, 2019 3:51 pm no that's an excellent joke. totally had me fooled too on the first read through, did a double-take before i got it

Ya same here. WBA, you gotta dumb down your jokes a little. They're flying way over my head.

wba wrote: ↑Tue Jul 23, 2019 9:58 am Do you know if any of her films have become commercially available this decade, Evelyn? Any box-sets or such? Or can they be found 'just' on the net?

Evelyn wrote: ↑Tue Jul 23, 2019 11:46 am

wba wrote: ↑Tue Jul 23, 2019 9:58 am Do you know if any of her films have become commercially available this decade, Evelyn? Any box-sets or such? Or can they be found 'just' on the net?

I do! Many can be found online now, but thanks to the recent home video releases. Gaumont Treasures was released in Region 1 in 2009 by Kino Lorber. A three-disc set, the first disk of which is devoted to Guy. Contains almost all of the extant films Guy directed in France between 1897 and 1907. More recently several Guy-Blache films, especially her later American work, have been included in major compilation releases (and, happily, on Blu-Ray for the first time): Flicker Alley's Early Women Filmmakers and Kino Lorber's Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers in Region 1; Lobster Films France's Les Pionnières du Cinéma and BFI's Early Women Filmmakers 1911-1940 in Region 2.

Evelyn wrote: ↑Tue Jul 23, 2019 12:24 pm My pleasure! (I should be a librarian...)