Cirque Act 2

Few individual artists have exerted as profound an influence upon the evolution of cinema as Alice Guy (later known as Guy-Blache). With this collection of more than 60 films, culled from the world’s leading archives and carefully mastered, Guy may no longer be seen as a (woman filmmaker.) These films, produced by Guy for Gaumont before she moved to the US, reveal her to be an unqualified pioneer whose work stands alongside that of the Lumiere Brothers, Georges Melies, and Edwin S. Porter, in cinema’s rapid growth from an optical illusion to a storytelling medium to an art form. Among the highlights are a 19th-century serpentine dance, early (trick) films, experiments with hand-coloring and synchronized sound, comedies, social commentaries, and (as the collection’s centerpiece) a 33-minute religious epic: The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ (1906).