More Alice Guy Blache
Jan. 3rd, 2021 11:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerFriends! Romans! Countrymen! I have discovered a veritable treasure trove of Alice Guy Blache films on Kanopy, including The Ocean Waif, a collection called Three Films by Alice Guy Blache that includes “A House Divided,” “Canned Harmony,” and “Falling Leaves,” plus!!! six more films in the collection Early Women Filmmakers: An International Anthology.
This anthology also includes films by Lois Weber (!), Germaine Dulac (!!!), and Olga Preobazhenskaia (!!!!!), as well as filmmakers I’ve never even heard of. I thought I had tracked down at least the names of all the early female filmmakers, BUT NO, there are more! I’m particularly intrigued by Mary Ellen Bute’s early experimental films and Madeline Brandeis’ 1918 fantasy film The Star Prince, directed when Brandeis was just 21…
I’m excited partly just on general principles, but also because I think I’ve finally broken my silent film block. For years I’ve sporadically watched silent films in the hopeless yearning that someday I would understand and enjoy them, and… it finally seems to have happened! I didn’t love all these films, but my love or lack thereof grew from their own merits and not my own struggle with the silent film media.
So as not to crush you under an avalanche of mini-reviews, I’ll just mention here a few of my favorites. My favorite Alice Guy Blache film from the Early Women Filmmakers anthology is “La Barricade,” a six minute film which features a teenage boy going out to the barricades (largely, it seems, out of curiosity) and nearly getting shot by firing squad, only for his mother to fling herself in front of him at the last moment, at which point the soldiers lower their guns. The true heroine of the piece!
I also quite like “Une Histoire Roulante,” a very short film which follows a giant barrel as it rolls through Paris, causing mayhem. Delicious physical comedy - Alice Guy Blache had comic timing down pat. (You can also see some of this comic instinct in “A House Divided,” about a husband and wife who separate, but still have to live together, and communicate by sending each other snarky notes.)
An Ocean Waif suffers somewhat because the print is badly damaged - I’m not sure, in fact, if it is a complete print. A few of the plot developments occur so abruptly that I sort of think that the ravages of Time destroyed part of the film. (There's also less ocean than you might expect from a film called The Ocean Waif. I feel that there ought to be at least a few ravishing sea shots, but no.)
Instead, this is the story of a girl who washed up on shore as a baby. Grown to young womanhood, she escapes from her violent foster father - side note: one of the things that has struck me about silent film is how visceral the violence often is, not in the sense that it’s gory (so far I haven’t seen any blood at all) but in the sense that it’s sudden and feels unchoreographed. Even if emotions are rising in the scene beforehand, it’s still startling when the Ocean Waif's foster father begins to beat her.
The Ocean Waif takes refuge in an abandoned house, which has the reputation of being haunted. In short order, the house is rented by a novelist, who (once he ascertains our girl is not a ghost) finds in her wonderful inspiration for a story! And also falls in love with her, because of course he does.
This anthology also includes films by Lois Weber (!), Germaine Dulac (!!!), and Olga Preobazhenskaia (!!!!!), as well as filmmakers I’ve never even heard of. I thought I had tracked down at least the names of all the early female filmmakers, BUT NO, there are more! I’m particularly intrigued by Mary Ellen Bute’s early experimental films and Madeline Brandeis’ 1918 fantasy film The Star Prince, directed when Brandeis was just 21…
I’m excited partly just on general principles, but also because I think I’ve finally broken my silent film block. For years I’ve sporadically watched silent films in the hopeless yearning that someday I would understand and enjoy them, and… it finally seems to have happened! I didn’t love all these films, but my love or lack thereof grew from their own merits and not my own struggle with the silent film media.
So as not to crush you under an avalanche of mini-reviews, I’ll just mention here a few of my favorites. My favorite Alice Guy Blache film from the Early Women Filmmakers anthology is “La Barricade,” a six minute film which features a teenage boy going out to the barricades (largely, it seems, out of curiosity) and nearly getting shot by firing squad, only for his mother to fling herself in front of him at the last moment, at which point the soldiers lower their guns. The true heroine of the piece!
I also quite like “Une Histoire Roulante,” a very short film which follows a giant barrel as it rolls through Paris, causing mayhem. Delicious physical comedy - Alice Guy Blache had comic timing down pat. (You can also see some of this comic instinct in “A House Divided,” about a husband and wife who separate, but still have to live together, and communicate by sending each other snarky notes.)
An Ocean Waif suffers somewhat because the print is badly damaged - I’m not sure, in fact, if it is a complete print. A few of the plot developments occur so abruptly that I sort of think that the ravages of Time destroyed part of the film. (There's also less ocean than you might expect from a film called The Ocean Waif. I feel that there ought to be at least a few ravishing sea shots, but no.)
Instead, this is the story of a girl who washed up on shore as a baby. Grown to young womanhood, she escapes from her violent foster father - side note: one of the things that has struck me about silent film is how visceral the violence often is, not in the sense that it’s gory (so far I haven’t seen any blood at all) but in the sense that it’s sudden and feels unchoreographed. Even if emotions are rising in the scene beforehand, it’s still startling when the Ocean Waif's foster father begins to beat her.
The Ocean Waif takes refuge in an abandoned house, which has the reputation of being haunted. In short order, the house is rented by a novelist, who (once he ascertains our girl is not a ghost) finds in her wonderful inspiration for a story! And also falls in love with her, because of course he does.
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Date: 2021-01-03 09:15 pm (UTC)That's really cool!
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