Women Film Makers: An Outline of Herstory

The history of women filmmakers in the American cinema is often most visible by its absence from the history books and movie theatres rather than by its works or artists. This is caused, in part, by Holly­wood's long standing bias against employing women as directors as well as by the traditional male domination of the film critical establishment. As a consequence, much of the work of women filmmakers has traditionally taken place on the periphery of the established film industry. In turn, much of this history has been largely forgotten due to genuine ignorance combined with willful neglect. Only recently has this hidden history been given some measure of attention and study and, in the process, been historically placed within the growth and development of the cinema.

Alice Guy Blache is generally believed to have been the first woman filmmaker. Born in Paris in 1873, she began working in France as a filmmaker before the end of the 19th-century. Her most active period of work, however, occurred in the United States where she eventually formed her own production company. From her studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey, she created a series of short films and, along with Georges Melies and Edwin S. Porter, was one of the original architects of the narrative cinema. Her works range from romance to comedy to science fiction, and the few surviving prints of her films attest to her innovative approach as an early filmmaker. Girl in the Armchair (USA 1912) is especially interesting for its use of color tinting as well as Blache's expedient handling of melodramatic conventions.

The first American born woman filmmaker was Lois Weber who, with occasional collaboration with her actor-husband Phillips Smalley, wrote, produced, and directed a series of dramas that she filmed in a studio leased from Universal. These independent productions were notable for both their technical polish as well as their willingness to confront controversial social subject matter; during her career, Weber produced films in support of birth control, women's suffrage and interracial love. Not surprisingly, she had tremendous difficulty in getting some of her films distributed and, by 1927, she found it financially impossible to continue producing films.

The Blot (USA 1921) is one of the few of Weber's feature-length films that has survived intact. Like most of her films, it overtly deals with an area of social concern, specifically the need for teachers and the even greater need to provide educators with equable pay. The Blot presents its social message within the larger context of its narrative, and one of the most striking aspects about Weber's work is her ability to present overt political concerns without being either heavy-handed or didactic. If any­thing, her films display a matter-of-factness that eschews the more excessive melodramatic conventions of the 1920s American cinema.

Through her work as both a filmmaker and as a mentor figure, Maya Deren was one of the major founding figures of the modern American Avant-Garde movement. With the production of such early experimental films as Meshes of the Afternoon (USA 1943), At Land (USA 1944), and Choreography for Camera (USA 1945), Deren established the basic directions the avant-garde cinema would follow throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Her brief fall from critical grace during the 1970s was, in part, a late rebellious reaction to the enormous shadow she cast throughout the early American experimental cinema movement.

Deren was strongly influenced by the theoretical principles of modern dance as well as by the surrealist cinema of the 1920s. Her films were often autobiographical in their references as she created a cinematic form of psychodrama. In At Land, she created a set of symbolic references while pursuing a study on the illusory structure of cinematic space.

Shirley Clarke began her career in the 1950s as both a dancer and an experimental filmmaker. She emerged most forcefully, however, as a documentary and narrative artist with such films as The Connection (USA 1960), The Cool World (USA 1963), and Portrait of Jason (USA 1967), films in which the romanticism of her early works gave way to a raw and direct look at people who existed on the edge of mainstream American society. In turn, her films achieved a sense of gritty realism rarely attempted within the American cinema. Clarke's career as a filmmaker and videographer has taken place totally outside the context of the American commercial media which has resulted in the limited amount of exposure her work has received. Yet, she remains firmly committed to this independent path which has allowed her to deal with a range of subject matter that is, for all practicable purposes, forbidden for presentation within the mainstream.

The Cool World was filmed on location in Harlem, using a cast composed of professional actors and local residents. Clarke's use of naturalistic photography and direct sound recordings was influenced by the original films of the Italian Neo-Realist movement and her non-judgmental presentation of the film's narrative forces the viewer, in part, to experience the ghetto environment and gang psychology on its own terms.

Before her untimely death, Kathleen Collins was a teacher and filmmaker of increasing critical prominence. Her work, as represented by her best known feature film Losing Ground (USA 1982), dealt with both feminist and African-American issues and concerns in ways that were both politically complex and narratively engaging.