Alice Guy-Blaché: Pioneering the Narrative Film

The art of filmmaking has only really been around for about a century. But in this century, this art form has shifted and changed so much. From the development of technology for capturing the moving picture to talkies to the big blockbusters, there have been many people who had a hand in changing the way that people look at film, genres, and storytelling. One of the earliest pioneers of creating films and new ways of storytelling was Alice Guy-Blaché. 

What is Narrative Filmmaking?

To understand Guy-Blaché’s contribution to developing storytelling, you first need to understand narrative filmmaking. It might be difficult to think of a time when the moving image was not used like in the movies we know and love today. When video and filmmaking technology were being developed, the main goal was simply to capture movement. Most scenes that were filmed and used in demonstrations were largely scenes of everyday things– a train moving or workers leaving the factory. This changed with narrative film. 

Narrative film is using film to tell a story or narrative, often fictional. It requires cause and effect of events as well as structure. At the time of its implementation into film, it was related to the narrative telling of plays. While Guy-Blaché was not the sole contributor to starting the shift from exhibition-style video to narrative storytelling, she was integral to the introduction of more narrative filmmaking and diverse storytelling. And more than that, she was not only the first female director but also the first to direct a fictional, narrative film. 

Alice Guy-Blaché: Discovering the Moving Picture

Alice Guy-Blaché didn’t discover film and was not an inventor but she led the movement to narrative filmmaking and introduced the world to new stories to tell.

Born in 1873 in Paris, France, Alice Guy grew up in both France and Chile. Once her father died, however, she stayed permanently in France and worked to support her mother. She trained to be a typist and started working as a secretary for motion picture pioneer Leon Gaumont. Working for Gaumont’s fledging studio, she got to accompany him to the first filmed screen projection demonstration. In getting a front-row seat to the pioneering of film technology, she was inspired. 

At the time, most films were just moving pictures; they did not really tell a story. Guy thought it would be better if they were more narrative. In her autobiography, she wrote that she “thought that one might do better than these demonstration films.” So inspired by narrative books and plays, she worked on a screenplay that she convinced Gaumont to let her direct. At just 23, La Fée Au Choux (1896) became not only her first film but also earned her the title of the first filmmaker to develop a system for narrative filmmaking. 

Alice Guy-Blaché: Life & Career

After the success of her first film, Guy was appointed the head of production at Gaumont’s company until 1906 when she married Herbert Blaché, another director, producer, and screenwriter for Gaumont. As a part of Gaumont’s expansion, they were sent to open an American branch of the company. A few years later in 1910, Guy-Blaché boldly established the Solax Company in New Jersey. Her production company continued to make silent films for Gaumont to distribute. After two years, she made enough money to build the largest studio in America at the time for what is about 3.2 million today. 

While her productions did dwindle in popularity, she continued to direct and make films. She and her husband began doing more work as directors for hire and moved to Hollywood for a short period before their divorce. After divorcing her husband, Guy-Blaché moved back to France where she continued working in film through teaching filmmaking and writing. 

Alice Guy-Blaché: Her Lasting Work

From age 23 until her retirement, Alice Guy-Blaché had a hand in over 1,000 film projects. She worked as a director, producer, screenwriter, studio owner, assistant director, and lecturer, being the first woman to work in many of these roles. While the films of the time were very different from the major films of today, even her short films, the common style at the time, left a lasting impression on the film industry as a whole. 

Guy-Blaché created films during the peak of the silent era when filmmakers were still learning how to tell stories without audio technology. That said, when sound started to be introduced in the industry, Alice was amongst the first to experiment with it, using the Chronophone, invented by Gaumont, to synchronize her footage to sound, even creating an early music video in 1905 when she had a singer lip-sync to their recorded music. With sound, she experimented with special effects, like creating illusions by playing film backward and double exposure. Guy-Blaché even pioneered hand-coloring film where each frame had to be painted by hand to give it a tint of color which can be seen in her films like Le Départ d’Arleguin et de Pierrette (1900). 

While she pioneered many new film techniques, Guy-Blaché’s most impactful contribution to filmmaking was storytelling. As one of the first to start creating narrative films, she showed the world how one could use the moving image to tell a story. And more than that, she told stories ahead of their time, with diverse casts and controversial topics. Many of her films focused on women, which was very different from other movies of the time. She made films where female characters were heroes, like in Two Little Rangers (1912). And also showed equal partnership in marriage in many of her films, like A House Divided (1913) and Matrimony’s Speed Limit (1913). One of her last and few surviving films she directed, The Great Adventure (1918), was a feature film with a female protagonist trying to make it on Broadway. Guy-Blaché played with gender roles, crafting comedies such as What Happened to Officer Henderson (1913), and used cross-dressing and reversed gender roles in the lost film In the Year 2000 (1912). In addition, Guy-Blaché was one of the first to make narrative films with all-Black casts and films with female and minority protagonists. Discover more of her work on Letterboxd.

Alice Guy-Blaché: Impact

Just by looking at her work, it is clear that Alice Guy-Blaché had an incredible impact on the film industry. She was the first to have diverse casting and comment on controversial topics, like immigration and abuse. But more than that, Alice Guy-Blaché is a key example of someone who had the power to change a whole industry and leave a lasting impact. While all the odds of her tough childhood and gender were stacked against her, she was able to overcome the male-dominated industry and create films for women like her and other minorities to relate to. 

Becoming the first female president of a production studio and being one of the first and very few directors, producers, and screenwriters at the time, Guy-Blaché believed in female economic independence. She shows women that they can be more than society tells them to be and that they can have their own dreams and aspirations. Even after retiring from production, she continued to teach the next generation of filmmakers. While she has been overlooked in history, she leaves a lasting legacy on the film industry as the first female director and studio head. 

Alice Guy-Blaché once said, “Success comes only to those who give the public what it wants, plus something else. That something else I would call our individuality.” She lived this quote throughout her entire career, bringing new stories with each of her films and teaching us how crucial storytelling is and how there are so many stories to be told. 

Learn more about another filmmaker who helped shape storytelling today with our last blog post on Nora Ephron and Shaping the Rom-Com and how Auteurnet can help you build your creative community.