mardi 7 octobre 2008

Reel Models First Women of film Barbara Sreisand


Reel Models First Women of film Barbara Sreisand

Barbara Streisand produces this documentary look at four early cinematic female innovators -- Alice Guy, Lois Weber, Frances Marion, and Dorothy Arzner -- narrated by Shirley MacLaine, Susan Sarandon, Hilary Swank, and Minnie Driver, respectively. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Run Time:
1 hr. 0 min.
Cast:
Shirley MacLaine, Susan Sarandon, Hilary Swank, Minnie Driver, Barbra Streisand
Director:
Christopher Koch
Genre:
Biography, Gender Issues, Film, TV & Radio, Film & Television History

Barbra Streisand, executive producer of ''Reel Models'' with Cis Corman, should know that achievement speaks for itself, but in her earnest introduction she seems a little too eager to sell us on the whole idea. And that tone lingers over the program as Shirley MacLaine, Susan Sarandon, Hilary Swank and Minnie Driver narrate segments on the four pioneers.

First we hear about Alice Guy, an early director and producer who made hundreds of short films in France and the United States beginning in 1896. There is plenty to credit her for: realizing very early the possibilities of close-ups and fade-outs; even hand-tinting films long before color. Some of these things have been erroneously credited to men who came later. But here as elsewhere in this program there is a tendency to go overboard. Ms. MacLaine, for instance, implies that Guy alone came up with the concept of using film to tell a story rather than simply to record real life; surely this was so obvious a step that it occurred spontaneously to many who were there at cinema's creation.


In the history of film little has been mentioned about the women pioneers who stood shoulder to shoulder with men in the development of both the technology and technique of cinema. American Movie Classics has presented an excellent program in its original program series that details the lives of three women pioneers of cinema, the most remarkable being the life of Alice Guy.

To say that Guy’s life affected film would be like saying Henry Ford had something to do with cars. Alice Guy (pronounced “Gee”) started movies as we know them today. Certainly there have been great innovators along the way improving film, but Guy got the whole ball of wax rolling.

Guy was working as a secretary at the Gaumont Company in France who along with other contemporaries such as the Pathe’ brothers, and Louis Lumiere made motion picture cameras. Guy managed to convince Gaumont to give her a crack at filmmaking so he would have a product to entice people to buy his cameras and in short order she was promoted to the head of the filmmaking division of that company. And here is the remarkable thing, Guy not only directed the first narrative motion picture, but was the first to use close ups, (something usually attributed to D.W. Griffin), she was the first to film a motion picture in color. First is a word that remains synonymous with Alice Guy. She did the first film noir, the first gay themed film, she was the first to step out from behind the camera to direct actors, at the time all directors handled the camera themselves, and she made extensive use of wax cylinders to give many of her short films a sound track, in other words they were talkies before anyone had coined that term.

Moving to America, Guy ran the largest pre-Hollywood studio in the country. Over her lifetime Guy wrote and directed over three hundred films and yet this Grand Lady of cinema has been all but ignored. It is time that this wrong is righted and Alice Guy given her due as the pioneer among pioneers in film.

My thanks to Barbra Streisand and AMC for bringing the deeds of Alice Guy and other women of cinema to light. For more information on Alice Guy a search on the Internet will turn up several pages of information about this remarkable woman.

TELEVISION REVIEW; Lionizing 4 Little-Known Women Behind the Lens

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Published: May 30, 2000

So narrowly white-male is our perception of the past that it is tempting to construct a Television Documentary Subject Generator, one of those comic charts that would let a producer choose randomly from Column A and Column B. ''Our documentary will explore the long-overlooked role of blacks/Asian-Americans/southpaws/vegetarians in Vietnam/early baseball/medicine/the Industrial Revolution. . . .''

That such programs have become somewhat formulaic is a good thing; slowly, our view of who shaped today's world is being made more inclusive. But with each revisionist nudge the bar gets higher: the more sophisticated our view of the past becomes, the more we demand from the revisionists.

So ''Reel Models: The First Women of Film,'' tonight's historical corrective on AMC, has the burden of doing more than simply telling us that women have been overlooked in the history of cinema. Unfortunately the program seems content merely to identify four female pioneers and gush about them.

Barbra Streisand, executive producer of ''Reel Models'' with Cis Corman, should know that achievement speaks for itself, but in her earnest introduction she seems a little too eager to sell us on the whole idea. And that tone lingers over the program as Shirley MacLaine, Susan Sarandon, Hilary Swank and Minnie Driver narrate segments on the four pioneers.

First we hear about Alice Guy, an early director and producer who made hundreds of short films in France and the United States beginning in 1896. There is plenty to credit her for: realizing very early the possibilities of close-ups and fade-outs; even hand-tinting films long before color. Some of these things have been erroneously credited to men who came later. But here as elsewhere in this program there is a tendency to go overboard. Ms. MacLaine, for instance, implies that Guy alone came up with the concept of using film to tell a story rather than simply to record real life; surely this was so obvious a step that it occurred spontaneously to many who were there at cinema's creation.

Ms. Sarandon tells of Lois Weber, who by 1916 was a top director at Universal, making daring films on social themes like birth control and child labor. She was a bit too committed to these subjects, as it turned out; in the 1920's public taste took a mindless turn and her films ceased to draw crowds.

Ms. Swank introduces Frances Marion, a screenwriter who, we're told in one of the program's funnier factoids, got her start writing lines for extras to mouth in silent films in case anyone in the audience could read lips. Here, though, the program veers from the theme of women who did not get their due. Marion won Oscars in 1930 and 1931 and, as the program acknowledges, was the highest-paid writer in Hollywood for years. There is a difference between being disenfranchised and simply fading into history.

Last, courtesy of Ms. Driver, comes Dorothy Arzner, a director who gave Katharine Hepburn and other future legends their first starring roles. She was, the show says, the only female director who managed to find a place in Hollywood's studio system.

Certainly ''Reel Models'' leaves no doubt that these four women made major contributions (and some of their films will be shown on AMC after the program). But it gives little sense of them as people.

Was Weber a domineering type of director or the kind who worked collaboratively with her actors? Was Marion a brooding writer or a zany, fun-loving one? The few times the program does provide personal glimpses it gets timid. After hearing Guy and Weber portrayed as strong, accomplished women, we are told that they both basically fell apart when their husbands left them; the incongruity is left unexplored.

In short, the program commits what is surely a cardinal sin in Ms. Streisand's book: it puts the four women on pedestals. They don't have any flaws; no one is that wonderful.

REEL MODELS
The First Women of Film
AMC, tonight at 8

Barbra Streisand and Cis Corman, executive producers; directed and produced by Susan and Christopher Koch. For American Movie Classics: Marc Juris and Jessica Falcon, executive producers.


Reel Models - First Women of Film," which received a 2000 Emmy and the Gracie Allen Award from American Women in Radio and Television.


Barbra Streisand's AMC Special in May

Posted/Updated: 27 July 2003 19:27

Barbra Streisand hosts and executive produces a brand-new TV documentary special called Reel Models: The First Women of Film, which premiered on American Movie Classics (AMC) on Tuesday, May 30, 2000 (8:00-9:00 p.m.). Co-executive produced with Cis Corman and directed by Emmy Award winners Susan and Christopher Koch (City of Hope), the program profiles the cinema's earliest female pioneers - Oscar-winning directors Dorothy Arzner (in whose name Women In Film presented Streisand with a special award in 1992), Lois Weber (actually the very first woman to direct, produce, write, and act in a theatrical feature back in the early silent era), and Alice Guy (a French film pioneer who invented the director's job), and screenwriter Frances Marion (a two-time Oscar winner who penned Garbo's first spoken words). Academy Award-winning actresses Shirley MacLaine, Susan Sarandon, and Hillary Swank, and Minnie Driver provide on-screen narration for each of the documentary's four segments. Barbra handles the opening and closing segments. AMC repeats the program on June 25 at 2:00 p.m.

AMC aired the documentary to introduce and inaugurate a 10-hour film series dedicated to women pioneer filmmakers. Titles include The Sewer (1911), Algie the Miner (1912), The Hypocrites (1912), Polyanna (1920), and three others. Reel Models repeated on May 31 at 2:00 a.m. In conjunction with the documentary, AMC presented film festivals in L.A. on May 15 and in New York on May 22 that showcased films made by Arzner, Guy, Marion, and Weber.

Hosted by AMC and New York Women in Film & Television, the New York film festival took place at the Clearview Chelsea Theater, 260 W. 23rd Street, on May 22 at 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. A screening of Reel Models: The First Women of Film occured at the same theater at 7:30 p.m., with a panel discussion following at 8:30 p.m. The panel was hosted by Cis Corman, President, Barwood Films. Panelists include: MoMA Curator Mary Lea Bandy; moderator; Director Martha Coolidge; author Olivia Goldsmith; film historian Anthony Slide; Former Academy President Fay Kanin; film critic Molly Haskell; and Reel Models director Susan Koch. Both events benefit the Women's Film Preservation Board.