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No Es Una Cuestión De Talento: Pioneras Del Cine

It's Not a Matter of Talent: Cinema Pioneers

A few weeks ago, we echoed on the Fx Barcelona Film School blog that Maite Ruiz de Austri, one of the few Spanish animation directors, was leaving the profession. A sad piece of news that partly orphaned the national animation scene. Premiering a movie in cinemas is a challenging task, and in some cases, it can become a true chimera. But if we compare the number of films released by men and women, focusing on the Spanish industry where 81% of films have been directed by men, we can come to a rather logical conclusion: a woman faces more obstacles to direct. It's not a matter of talent or technical quality. Recently, we had the opportunity to see several movies directed by women at the Sitges Film Festival, such as "La valija Benavídez" by Laura Casabé, "Prevenge" by Alice Low, "The Love Witch" by Anna Biller, "Dearest Sister" by Mattie Do, "Salvación" by Denís Castro (all very interesting, with good stories and excellently filmed) and the best movie I've seen this year: "Grave" directed by Julia Ducournau. However, this apparent rejection of films made by women was not always the case in the history of cinema. Interestingly, in the early days of cinema, the role of women was more significant than we might think. Several female directors and screenwriters are among the pioneers who developed cinema as an art, as entertainment, and as a language. Film historian Cari Beauchamp explains it as follows in "The Story of Film: An Odissey": "Hollywood was built by women, immigrants, and Jews, people who were not accepted in any other profession. So, Hollywood became a magnet for people with a lot of desire, creativity, who were not accepted in other professions. Half of the films before 1925 were written by women. This shows how comfortable they were in that business". The industry fully trusted women to create stories, write scripts, direct studios, and create a language that would make cinema the most important and popular art of the last hundred years. Here are four of those pioneering women in cinema: - Alice Guy-Blanché (1873-1968) - Louis Weber (1881-1939) - Frances Marion (1888-1973) - Anita Loos (1888-1981) It's not a matter of talent.
A few weeks ago, we echoed on the Fx Barcelona Film School blog that Maite Ruiz de Austri, one of the few Spanish animation directors, was leaving the profession. A sad piece of news that partly leaves Spain's animation industry motherless. Releasing a movie in cinemas is a challenging task and in some cases, it can become a true chimera. However, comparing the number of movies released by men and women, and focusing on the Spanish industry where 81% of the films have been directed by men, we can come to a rather logical conclusion: a woman has a harder time directing. It's not a matter of talent or technical quality. Recently, we had the opportunity to see at the Sitges Festival several movies directed by women such as "La valija Benavídez" by Laura Casabé, "Prevenge" by Alice Low, "The Love Witch" by Anna Biller, "Dearest Sister" by Mattie Do, "Salvación" by Denís Castro (all very interesting, with good stories and excellently filmed) and the best movie I have seen this year: "Raw" directed by Julia Ducournau. But this apparent rejection of movies made by women was not always like this in the history of cinema. Curiously, in the early days of cinema, the role of women was more important than we think. Several female directors and screenwriters were among the pioneers who developed cinema as an art, as entertainment, and as a language. Film historian Cari Beauchamp explains it as follows in "The Story of Film: An Odyssey": "Hollywood was built by women, immigrants, and Jews, people who were not accepted in any other profession. So Hollywood became a magnet for people with a lot of enthusiasm, creative, who were not accepted in other professions. Half of the films before 1925 were written by women. That shows how comfortable they were in that business." The industry had full confidence in women to create stories, write scripts, run studios, and create a language that would make cinema the most important and popular art of the last hundred years. Here are four of those cinema pioneers:
Alice Guy-Blanché

Alice Guy-Blanché (1873-1968)

Alice was the secretary of the French producer Gaumont when he wanted to compete with the film empire that Pathé had built. Alice showed him a movie she had directed in her spare time, which could help sell their movie cameras better. Alice became the director of Gaumont, directing many films between 1896 and 1907 when she decided to move to the United States. There, she founded her own production company, Solax Films, with which she continued directing until 1920. She is credited with the first stories with a certain narrative structure, the first superimpositions, and being the first director to work with black actors. For years, many of her films were mistakenly attributed to her husband, also a director, Herbert Blaché.

Louis Weber

Louis Weber (1881-1939)

Actress, screenwriter, producer, and director. She was the first woman to direct a feature film, "The Merchant of Venice," in 1914. She directed over a hundred films (including short films) portraying themes such as abortion, alcoholism, drug addiction, and the death penalty. Her films were box office hits, allowing her to become the highest-paid director at Universal Studios in 1916. She went on to found her own production company, Lois Weber Productions, and directed her final film, "White Heat," in 1936.

Frances Marion (1888-1973)

Frances Marion (1888-1973)

Journalist, writer, and film screenwriter. She began working for Lois Weber's production company writing many scripts for the silent film star Mary Pickford. She wrote over three hundred scripts and won two Academy Awards, one in 1930 for the script of "The Big House" by George Hill and another for "The Champ" by King Vidor. She also wrote the screenplay for one of the masterpieces of the Swedish director Victor Sjöström, "The Wind" (1928) and worked for directors such as Edgar Neville, James Whale, or Jacques Feyder.

 

 

Anita Loos

Anita Loos (1888-1981)

Writer, playwright, and film screenwriter. She began her career in 1912 as a screenwriter for many of David W. Griffith's shorts and some work for Allan Dwan and star Dogulas Faribanks. Among her works of the twenties, she stands out for the intertitles of "Intolerance" (1916) directed by Griffith himself. She worked for eighteen years for the Metro Goldwyn Mayer studio, for which she wrote scripts such as "San Francisco" (1936) by W.S. Van Dyke and "The Women" (1939) by George Cukor. She is also the author of the famous novel "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (1925), for which she also wrote its first film adaptation in 1928.

It's not a matter of talent.