Be Natural - Alice Guy-Blache - A Review

I first became aware of this documentary during the kickstarter campaign in 2013. Full disclosure, I was one of the 3840 backers to help this film. Granted speaking for myself in a small backer way but every penny counts, right?  Kickstarter campaigns have been a great way to get important things like this documentary added funding to get them over the finish line. If you’ve seen any of my prior posts on kickstarting, you know I am a fan of making rare films available.

Alice's rule for actors Be Natural sign
hanging at the Solax studio

Producer/Director/Writer of Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché, Pamela B. Green had begun her journey in 2012.  Like many a worthy project, the gestation period was a long one.  Also, like the other backers, I have been patiently waiting to see this come to fruition and come to a big screen near me. I was recently rewarded with a screening at the Roxie in San Francisco. I was also rewarded thanks to kickstarter swag with a link to a digital download which I revisited recently. It was, as they say, well worth the wait.  The DVD was released today, August 20th.

Solax logo and trademark

I enjoyed this film. I felt it was well written and well done.  It was a real pleasure to watch. So many documentaries rely on talking heads with little footage of what the documentary is about. Not that talking heads are something to be sneered at, they’re not. It is just some films of this nature rely so much on the scholars (or the merely opinionated) the focus of the subject at hand is lost. Not in this case. Alice is very much front and center.  Modern filmmakers, film producers, scholars of film history, teachers, so many people are interviewed for this film.  The downside was with so many names popping on screen, many were merely on screen for a few seconds. I will also confess, a lot of these names were not names I was familiar with. To be honest, there were SO many names here, I could have used more of the interviews with Alice.

Alice Guy Blaché

This film was not only about discovering Alice Guy-Blaché, it is the journey to rediscover her and to truly find her. Ms. Green’s search as laid out intimates that Alice and her films were unknown to the world. This is simply not true, not in the last 20 years.  As I said, the narrative is engaging, the mystery interesting and Ms. Green's discovery of Alice and everything about her, was kind of thrilling. With that caveat, this film is necessary.  It helps being Alice Guy-Blaché not only from behind the veil of history for the modern scholar, it brought her very much to life. To see and hear Alice , even so late in life is a wonderful thing.  She is present, alive and a fascinating woman.

As has so often been written, the history of film has been written for and by the men. Certainly, a great portion of the industry was founded by men like the Lumiere Brothers, Georges Melies, Thomas Edison and Edwin S. Porter (I am generalizing here to save space, the list of film founders is a long one and not limited to the USA). In all this history, one very important name was left off the list, one that was not so well known to me, but a name and trademark I knew Solax.  This being a by-product of my line of work, in IP I love old trademarks and logos.  The Trademark Gazette’s were filled with such glorious logos. That logo was the extent of my knowledge other than a few film snippets and mentions here and there. The Woman Film Pioneers Project has helped get many names out from the shadows of film history.  One was Alice Guy-Blaché. A caveat, Alice was not exactly lost in these last 20 years.  Lots of good work precedes this film, including this documentary from Canada which predates Be Natural by 23 years and covers a lot of the same areas. Nevertheless, getting Alice's work and story out to a wider audience, this is not a bad thing.

Brilliant animation is used in many imaginative ways
this a portion of a 3D model of the Solax studio set up.

It has taken over a century since her last film and fifty years since her passing for her name to be one spoken in the same breath as those famous Lumiere, Melies, and Gaumont.  It’s about time.  What was so very remarkable about this film for me was seeing Alice speak of her career on film, and on tape.  She was still a stunning woman with bright eyes, firm speech and terrific recall of the important days of her career. Proud and rightly so.  She became not just a name, but a living presence. It appalled me to see that her former employer Gaumont who wrote to her of her importance in correspondence, erase her from the written history. It was thrilling to hear her defending her life and career with pride and fervor. Bless the people who filmed her and interviewed her.  Bless Ms. Green for her persistence in finding people and forcing them to look for tapes and films. It was this kind of persistence that got this film made.

Home movies of Alice and her daughter Simone

Alice's career is vitally important.  She touched upon themes like social issues long before Lois Weber (no less important a filmmaker).  She worked in family comedies, westerns, dramas.  She really did run the gamut. This included the first film featuring an all African American cast in 1912, A Fool and His Money.

In the film, narrated by director/producer and actor Jodie Foster (in flawless French when needed), Alice’s life and career is chronicled with loving care.  Ms. Green’s journey is traced, as is Alice’s life, by animated maps.  I found them stylish and a perfect parallel illustration to their respective journeys through the course of the film. Others may find them gimmicky. Her story is told by Alice, her daughter and through many clips of her films. It is a story that needed to be told.  I can say when the film came to a conclusion with a montage of all the various people interviewed that dissolved into a single image of Alice, well sniffle that was effective.

Alice only discovered two of her films late in her lifetime.  So many more are yet to be found. While the discovery of more of Alice’s films remains a constant search, her story is now further out front.  Research uncovered family links and incredible family documents that I personally hope will result in a more complete written biography of this important filmmaker.

We are offered so many glimpses of Alice’s films, they are charming, funny, and composed with an eye of a painter. In watching some of the films on the Women Film Pioneers set (another kickstarter for me from KINO Lorber: ) it made me long for a boxed set of just Alice's films.

Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché is still making the round of film festivals and local screenings.  I encourage you to seek it out on the big screen if you can.  You can check screenings on the Be Natural website.

The film is being released on DVD by KINO Lorber and you can pre-order it here.  I also encourage you to support the purchase of physical media.

I found this film to be even more rewarding on a second viewing.  I was thrilled to play a very teeny part in helping this get made.  Do go and see it.

To see more of what Alice's films look like, here are more screen caps which KINO has authorized me to utilize freely and I thank them.