Alice Guy Blache

Emma Thompson won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay in 1996, for her version of Sense and Sensibility (original book by Jane Austen of course).

This year, an African-American won this category for the first time, for Precious:based on the book Push by Sapphire.

And Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman (in 82 yrs!) to win for best film director. And presumably for the first time a movie directed by a woman won best picture. Beating out a movie supposedly promoting conservation that took 10 years of energy and daily extensive makeup that was probably animal tested and full of all the environmentally dangerous ingredients that one of my friends (love ya!) emails about.

Anyway, the next day Joan Rivers, while commenting on the fashion worn at the Oscars, like it matters, states that Ms. Bigelow should have worn something better since she is a beautiful woman and is "now a directress".

Ms. Bigelow has been a dirctOR for over ten years and had just made history.

Ms. Rivers also commented that someone should tell Mariah Carey that she is chubby. Someone should tell Ms. Rivers that she should retire permanently, along with her plastic surgeon.


In honor of National Women's History Month and Ms. Bigelow, I found the first woman director and the first woman (so far the only) to own and run a film studio. Her name was Alice Guy Blache, born Alice Guy. She actually was one of the first directors ever, back when motion cameras and the first sound equipment was first being developed. "Films" at that time were short clips produced to sell the equipment, and Alice Guy was at the forefront of film. She was working for the the Gaumont Company in France as a secretary, and when she suggested to her boss that she create some short scenes, she was given permission as long as it did not interfere with her secretarial duties.

She went on to become one of the first to create a fiction film, as most films at the time were what today would be considered documentaries. There has been some argument that she was the first to make fiction films, but there was one that was screened before her first film. She also was head of production at Gaumont for 11 years, and then after she was married she moved to the US and started her own studio, Solax. She started her movie career in 1896 and her career lasted longer than most of her contemporaries at the time. She made her last movie in 1920. By that point she was directing films for other movie studios.

Alice Guy Blache was a pioneer and film visionary. As are a lot of other directors who happen to be women. It should not have taken 82 years for one to win best director.

Most of the research on Alice Guy Blache was done by Allison McMahon (book: the lost visionary). For more information about women in film, check out the blog film-fatale1907.blogspot.com.