New York Times: ‘Be Natural’ Review: Rescuing Alice Guy Blaché, a Film Pioneer, From Oblivion
At the beginning of Pamela B. Green’s lively and informative new documentary, a bevy of movie people — directors, actors, scholars and others — are asked if they know anything about Alice Guy Blaché, who is the subject of the film. A few of them do (Ava DuVernay, for one), but most admit that they have no clue. Viewers who are similarly ignorant shouldn’t feel bad, and in the best pedagogical spirit Green turns blank looks and sheepishly shrugged shoulders into a teaching moment. “Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché” seeks both to help rescue Guy Blaché from oblivion and to explain how she got there in the first place.
New York Times: Overlooked No More: Alice Guy Blaché, the World’s First Female Filmmaker
Even before women had the right to vote, Blaché, in her actions and in her films, expressed female drives, desires and self-determination.
BBC - Travel Was this the First US' Film town?
A famous black-and-white image from the early days of film shows actress Pearl White looking coyly to her side while three men – one standing beside a movie camera, the others closer to the ground behind the actress – are setting up a scene on a precarious cliff above a distant body of water. The now-iconic still is from White’s 1918 film serial The House of Hate, a nail-biting murder mystery that ended in suspenseful cliffhangers each week.