Early Women Filmmakers: An International Anthology

Films by 14 women directors made between 1902-43 are collected and curated in this impressive boxed set collection produced by David Shepard. The shorts and feature films include fantasies, dramas, comedies, animation, and avant-garde films from some of the most important filmmakers of the silent era, as well as lesser-known women filmmakers. The six short films by Alice Guy Blaché illustrate her evolution from an inventive fantasist of early cinema to a sophisticated storyteller who used dramatic compositions and editing to tell complex stories. Lois Weber's short thriller Suspense (1913) shows even greater technical and narrative sophistication, from a three-way split screen to extreme angles to dense crosscutting, while her 1921 feature The Blot confronts both the physical and emotional damage of poverty in a compelling drama. Germaine Dulac's La Souriante Mme. Beudet (1922), considered the first feminist film, brings avant-garde elements to melodrama, and Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) is an avant-garde landmark. Along with restored editions of these notable films, the set spotlights interesting but little-seen works such as Dulac's domestic drama La Cigarette (1919), Russian director Olga Preobrazhenskaia's rural Soviet drama The Peasant Woman of Ryazan (1927), and the independently-produced The Woman Condemned (1934) by Dorothy Davenport, who signed her films Mrs. Wallace Reid. Also included are the comedy short Mabel's Strange Predicament (1914), directed by slapstick star Mabel Normand and featuring Charles Chaplin in one of his earliest roles; the short films of animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger; and the propaganda documentary short Day of Freedom (1935) by Leni Riefenstahl. While hardly comprehensive, this is an ambitious collection of important films, many previously unavailable, and most newly restored and remastered for this release. The set presents the entire collection on both Blu-ray and DVD, with extras including an audio commentary on The Blot by film scholar Shelley Stamp, and a booklet. Highly recommended. (S. Axmaker)