Alice Guy, the world's first female director, is reborn in a superb album

"

The recommendation is excellent and the place is important ... But I am afraid that you are too young, Miss

" ... When Alice Guy presents herself to Leon Gaumont for a place of shorthand typist, she answers him with a suspicion of insolence: "

Do not worry, I will get over it!

"This keen sense of repartition won over the director of the

Comptoir Général de Photographie

, an optical and photographic equipment company.

The beginning of a great adventure for the one who will become the first director in the history of cinema.

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Read also Alice Guy, the little-known pioneer of French cinema

In a fascinating drawn biography, the couple of authors José-Louis Bocquet and Catel brilliantly illustrate the prodigious journey of this pioneer.

With in filigree the picture of an era and the vagaries of the birth of cinema.

When what is called today the seventh art was still only a phenomenon of fair.

Kiki de Montparnasse, Olympe de Gouges, Joséphine Baker to name a few, the tandem has made a specialty of its great feminine destinies.

"Alice's emancipation and feminism are intrinsic to her story"

Catel

Unique woman in a world of men, Alice Guy defied by her enthusiasm, her passion for the profession, the sexist or macho considerations of her time. Attention, we are not in front of yet another manifesto of feminism. The album goes much further. “

Alice's emancipation and feminism are at the very origin of her story,”

underlines Catel.

From what she is, what she does, the environment in which she operates, readers can easily get an idea of ​​Alice's personality. In no case was she an activist. She is just in essence a liberated woman. It takes power, it uses it, it frees itself.

»Nohouse arrest for the Demoiselle Guy who could make her own these wonderful words of Victor Hugo uttered by Hernani "

I am a force that goes!

"

The obstinacy of a woman inhabited by her art animates the director who has made her life an adventure.

“

We need female models like her.

I think the history books are sorely lacking.

Me, I grew up with Joan of Arc and Marie-Antoinette, not very enviable destinies for women.

There are remarkable women who have left their mark on humanity and who cannot be found in the history books.

Our intention with José-Louis is to show that having temperament and saying things as they are, with accuracy and conviction, promotes listening and respect.

"

Women are not the only object of respect in this work.

Louis Gaumont, Louis Feuillade, Gustave Eiffel ... Behind this fascinating portrait also loom those of great men, benevolent and confident helping him to climb the ladder “

It is a man who writes the screenplay,

points out the designer.

These two sensibilities allow a balanced vision, as objective as possible of the course of our heroine

”.

The BD box: Catel decryption

In the film

The Results of Feminism

, the men stay at home, ironing, sewing, cleaning while the women arrive with their cigars, read the newspaper and put their hands on their buttocks.

Catel / Casterman

“

This board is very evocative both in terms of substance and form. The heroine shoots a scene from the film

The Results of Feminism

(1906). She became a director, directs the Hassard set of Gaumont studios at the Buttes Chaumont which is growing, hires Louis Feuillade, a talented journalist writer, to write screenplays. Here, she brings him to a shoot where she has carte blanche. With a lot of humor, she makes an incredible proposal, she turns the world upside down, going a step further in her way of evoking the relationship between men and women. The men stay at home, do the ironing, sewing, cleaning while the women arrive with their cigars, read the newspaper and put their hands on their buttocks. A woman takes a man into a room to force him to kiss her, and the man faints. Alice Guy knows very well that his scenes could shock and asks Louis Feuillade for his opinion, which responds with humor.

“This sequence highlights a feminist background that Alice Guy will never claim.

Even if no militant words have ever been uttered by the director, her burlesque is loaded.

But what matters for her is above all her job, to make people laugh ”

Catel

When this film is shown from fair to fair, spectators will be hilarious.

Especially the women.

As for men, they will consider these scenes completely aberrant: its zany confined with surrealism.

In terms of form, these very short scenes provide interesting graphic material. They are located in different interior or exterior decors and are full of accessories. For the setting in scene, I chose to make it in height and to cut it in two: the left side illustrates the shooting and the other part shows in parallel the projection of the film. To differentiate the two moments, I used two different techniques: the pencil for the projection, the pen and the Indian ink for the filming. The charcoal appearance of the pencil offers more sketched faces to make the feel slightly blurry of movement. These graphic variations dot the album, they allow me touse several shades of gray to evoke various moments in the story and promote greater visibility for the reader. Graphically, I based myself on the drawings of the Belle Époque, both in terms of atmosphere, sets, costumes and technique. Dedicated to reproduction, the drawings of the time were enamelled with numerous horizontal or vertical lines generating more or less intense grays. On the board, the decor and the parquet illustrate this process. In each of my comics, I am inspired by the graphic codes of the time: eighteenth century engravings for Olympe de Gouges, or expressionism and art brut of the thirties for Joséphine Baker.atmosphere, decorations, costumes that at the technical level. Dedicated to reproduction, the drawings of the time were enamelled with numerous horizontal or vertical lines generating more or less intense grays. On the board, the decor and the parquet illustrate this process. In each of my comics, I am inspired by the graphic codes of the time: eighteenth century engravings for Olympe de Gouges, or expressionism and art brut of the thirties for Joséphine Baker.atmosphere, decorations, costumes that at the technical level. Dedicated to reproduction, the drawings of the time were enamelled with numerous horizontal or vertical lines generating more or less intense grays. On the board, the decor and the parquet illustrate this process. In each of my comics, I am inspired by the graphic codes of the time: eighteenth century engravings for Olympe de Gouges, or expressionism and art brut of the thirties for Joséphine Baker.inspired graphic codes of the time: 18th century engravings for Olympe de Gouges, or expressionism and art brut of the thirties for Joséphine Baker.inspired graphic codes of the time: 18th century engravings for Olympe de Gouges, or expressionism and art brut of the thirties for Joséphine Baker.

For the representation of Alice, I played the balancing act between the stereotype of the Belle Époque woman, with her elegant outfits, her neat hairstyle, her slim figure and the uniqueness of my heroine. We had to find a way to bite into it tintin style, with an oval and regular face while working every element of his face to bring out his own personality. I paid particular attention to her little pointed nose and the expressiveness of her clear eyes

.

At the time, his proposal for the inverted world was revolutionary.

This sequence highlights a feminist background that Alice Guy will never claim.

Even if no militant words have ever been uttered by the director, her burlesque is responsible for it.

But what matters for her is above all her job, to make people laugh.

Here, we are not in the seventh art but in pure entertainment, almost a craft fair.

This film marked, as a child, a filmmaker like Eisenstein.

Alice Guy did not shine in the cinema only as the first female director, but also as an artist.

"