On this day in movie history - Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (2018 documentary & book):

Be Natural:
The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché

a documentary directed by Pamela B. Green,

written by Pamela B. Green and Joan Simon,

based on the book by Alison McMahan,

was released in the United States on December 7, 2018.
Music by Peter G. Adams.
Narrated by Jodie Foster.

Recommended reading:

Alice Guy Blache:

Lost Visionary of the Cinema

by Alison McMahan.

Filmed as Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (2018), documentary directed by Pamela B. Green.

Published by Continuum Intl Pub Group.

Published 2002.

Hardcover.

ISBN-10: 0826451586

ISBN-13: 978-0826451583

Description:

The time has arrived, so it would seem, when woman must take her place beside man in the majority of arts and professions in the business world. In women of the caliber of Madame Alice Blaché it has also been demonstrated that there is a possibility of their doing so without being shorn of that most desirable of womanly qualities, femininity. – The Moving Picture News, 1912.

It has long been a source of wonder to me that many women have not seized upon the wonderful opportunities offered to them by the motion-picture art to make their way to fame and fortune as producers of photodramas. Of all the arts there is probably none in which they can make such a splendid use of talents so much more natural to a woman than to a man and so necessary to its perfection. – Alice Guy Blaché, 1914.

Over a hundred years after she started making films (which was considerably earlier than D.W. Griffith, Mabel Normand, and Lillian Gish began their careers), the life and work of Alice Guy Blaché is still shrouded in myth and controversy.

Only a fraction (111) of the approximately one thousand films that she directed still exist, and almost half of these have been found very recently. The films are spread out in archives all over the world. Not all of them are available for viewing, even to scholars, and many of them are in desperate need of conservation and preservation.

It is widely agreed that she was the first woman filmmaker but there is considerable debate as to whether she made the first ever fiction film. She played a key role in early sound film production, and yet this part of her career is almost always ignored. She is, to this day, the only woman ever to have owned and run her own film studio. And yet she made her final film in 1920, at the age of 47, and died in New Jersey in 1968, unacknowledged, unheralded, almost totally forgotten.

Ten years of painstaking research has enabled Alison McMahan to piece together the career of this extraordinary woman. What results is the first full-length treatment of Alice Guy Blaché’s work, the debunking of several long-standing myths about her and, ultimately, the emergence of a feminist figurehead of the filmmaking industry.

"McMahan s book is an obsessively detailed history of a true motion-picture pioneer." – American Cinematographer, July 2002.

"The author provides intriguing information about Guy s life, the early days of film production, and Guy s independent film company (Solax)." – Choice, November 2002.

"A fascinating book that will interest scholars and general readers alike." – Richard Abel, Drake University.

"Monumental...a daunting achievement." – Los Angeles Times, August 15, 2002.

On this day in movie history - Contact (movie & novel):

Contact

directed by Robert Zemeckis,

written by James V. Hart and Michael Goldenberg,

based on the novel by Carl Sagan,

was released in the United States on July 11, 1997.
Music by Alan Silvestri.

Cast:

Jodie Foster, Jena Malone, Matthew McConaughey, David Morse, Tom Skerritt, James Woods, John Hurt, William Fichtner, Angela Bassett, Jake Busey, Rob Lowe, Geoffrey Blake, Max Martini, Steven Ford, Jay Leno, Larry King, Ann Druyan.

Recommended reading:

Contact

By Carl Sagan.

Published 1985.

A science-fiction novel.

ISBN-10: 0671004107

ISBN-13: 978-0671004101

Description:

In December, 1999, a multinational team journeys out to the stars, to the most awesome encounter in human history.

Who – or what – is out there?

In Cosmos, Carl Sagan explained the universe.

In Contact, he predicts its future – and our own.

On this day in movie history - Inside Man (2006):

Inside Man

directed by Spike Lee,

written by Russell Gewirtz,

was released in the United States on March 24, 2006.

Music by Terence Blanchard.

Cast:

Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Carlos Andrés Gómez, Kim Director, James Ransone, Bernie Rachelle, Peter Gerety, Victor Colicchio, Cassandra Freeman, Peter Frechette, Gerry Vichi, Waris Ahluwalia, Rafael Osorio, Rodney 'Bear' Jackson, Daryl Mitchell, Ashlie Atkinson, David Brown, Robert C. Kirk, Frank Stellato, Ken Leung, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Ed Onipede Blunt, Amir Ali Said, Lemon Andersen, Samantha Ivers, Peter Kybart, Jason Manuel Olazabal, Jeff Ward, Anthony Mangano, Michael Devine, Ed Bogdanowicz, Aaron Vexler, Anthony Borowiec, Joe Coots, Lionel Pina, Ken Ferrigni, Frank Hopf, Robert Testut, Craig M. Spitzer, Limary Agosto, Patrick Illig, Frank Composto, Rozanne Sher, Rachel Black, Gregory Dann, Ben Crowley, Shon Gables, Dominic Carter, Sandra Endo, Kandiss Edmundson, Al Palagonia, Florina Petcu, Agim Coma, John Speredakos, Baktash Zaher, Ernest Rayford, Vincent DiMartino, Julian Niccolini, Ed Crescimanni, Brad Leland.

On this day in movie history - Taxi Driver (1976):

Taxi Driver

directed by Martin Scorsese,

written by Paul Schrader,

was released in the United States on February 8, 1976.

Music by Bernard Hermann.

Cast:

Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Albert Brooks, Leonard Harris, Peter Boyle, Steven Prince, Harvey Keitel, Martin Scorsese, Harry Northup, Victor Argo, Joe Spinell, Diahnne Abbott.