Woman

1896 – La Fée aux Choux / The Cabbage Fairy

(Note: Due to the 1896 version being lost media, the video here is a remake by Alice Guy from 1900. It is often incorrectly cited as the 1896 original.)

Alice Guy was born in Paris on July 1, 1874, and began her career as a secretary for inventor and industrialist Léon Gaumont in 1894. She directed La Fée aux Choux as a means of demonstrating the possibilities of the camera manufactured by Gaumont, in the process not only producing quite possibly the first fantasy film but becoming the first female film director!

The film was based on a French children’s tale that boys are born in cabbages and girls in roses (a cabbage supposedly resembling a baby’s head). It was quite long for its time, clocking at 1 minute! Guy was soon promoted to the company’s head of motion picture production and directed most of their films until 1905. She not only experimented with cinematic techniques (running film backward, double exposure, etc.) but also used Gaumont’s Chronophone to produce around 100 “sound” films between 1906 and 1907.

Over time, a lot of her accomplishments were forgotten or attributed to her male colleagues. Today only a few of films she produced remain.

Bibliography

IMDb contributors (n.d.). ‘La fée aux choux (1896)’, IMDb. Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0223341/ [Accessed: 22 December 2021].

Noble P. et al. (2013). ‘Languages of love: 10 unusual terms of endearment’, BBC News, 30 May. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22699938 [Accessed: 22 December 2021].

popegrutch (2014). ‘Cabbage Fairy (1896)’, Century Film Project, 28 May. Available at: https://centuryfilmproject.org/2014/05/28/cabbage-fairy-1896/ [Accessed: 22 December 2021].

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica (2021). ‘Alice Guy-Blanché’. Encyclopædia Britannica, 27 June. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alice-Guy-Blache [Accessed: 22 December 2021].

1894 – Carmencita

Directed by: William K. L. Dickson

The titular performer in this film is a Spanish dancer who would perform at Koster & Bial’s Music Hall in New York City. According to some sources, she is the first woman to appear in a U.S. motion picture.

The 21-second film came under attack by anti-obscenity activists due to provocative tugs at the bottom of her skirt and her ankles being exposed. In some places the film was banned, resulting in one of the earliest examples of censorship in the industry.

Bibliography

IMDb contributors (n.d.). ‘Carmencita (1894)’, IMDb. Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000001/ [Accessed: 1 December 2021].

Library of Congress (n.d.). ‘Carmencita’, Library of Congress. Available at: https://www.loc.gov/item/00694116/ [Accessed: 1 December 2021].

Ovalle, P. P. (2011). Dance and the Hollywood Latina: Race, Sex, and Stardom. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Waxman, O. B. (2016). ‘This Is What Americans Used to Consider Obscene’, Time, 21 June. Available at: http://time.com/4373765/history-obscenity-united-states-films-miller-ulysses-roth/ [Accessed: 1 December 2021].