+ intro by BFI National Archive curator Bryony Dixon and guests
We have been proudly championing the work of women filmmakers for many years at the BFI. But we were not the first to do so. The Film Society, a pioneering organisation of cinephiles, addressed the issue as early as 1930, in their 38th edition. It consisted solely of films produced or directed by women. Not all of these survive – we have lost films by Dorothy Arzner and Dinah Shurey – but we have enough to present, for the first time since 1930, this celebration of the women who featured in that groundbreaking programme.
Secrets of Nature: Plants of the Underworld
Mary Field was born in Wimbledon, London, in 1896 and trained as a teacher and historian. Visiting British Instructional studios in late 1925 as an historical adviser for one of their films, she was offered a post as education manager. Within a year she had become a member of the production staff, learning editing, continuity, scriptwriting and direction on educational, documentary and feature films. By 1927 she was working with the cinematographer Percy Smith on the pioneering natural history series Secrets of Nature (1922-33), a forerunner to the wildlife television programmes of today. Compared with the sophisticated technology available to contemporary filmmakers, the equipment used by Field and Smith was cumbersome and noisy, making the results they achieved all the more remarkable. In 1929, Field became the Secrets of Nature series editor, continuing to direct many films herself, including the zoological series.
When British Instructional was taken over in 1933, Field moved to the newly created educational unit, Gaumont-British Instructional. With her old employer from British Instructional, Bruce Woolfe, she started a new nature series, Secrets of Life (1934-1950). Field also directed films for geography, history, language, physical education and hygiene syllabuses in schools and promoted the educational use of film on various committees.
Sarah Easen, BFI Screenonline
Cinderella
With Cinderella, an expressionistic stroke of genius, Lotte Reiniger again turned to a fairy tale: ‘…an artistic masterpiece. Its atmosphere has been captured here, with its naïve romanticism and inherent humour. Each silhouette exhibits distinct character which brings to life the essence of the fairy tale figure.’ (Filmkurier, 9 March 1923). The fairy tale of the prince who is looking for the mysterious beauty, an outcast within her family, has gone through several film versions. Apart from the Brothers Grimm, there is Perrault’s courtly version. The Czech writer Bozena Nemcová wrote a charming adaptation with emancipatory echoes, which has long since become a classic thanks to Vàclav Vorlicek’s film Drei Nüsse für Aschenbrödel (US version: Three Wishes for Cinderella). Lotte Reiniger’s silent expressionist film version of 1922 is based on the Grimm Brothers’ version.
The English release version was born of the initiative of Eric Walter White, a friend of Lotte Reiniger and Carl Koch. The English intertitles were written by Humbert Wolfe, but the title cards were designed by Reiniger herself in London and inserted into the movie later.
‘A Lotte Reiniger film in London. A six-year-old film by Lotte Reiniger, Cinderella is currently being shown in several London cinemas with great success. The first screening of the film took place at an event of the Film Society and received great acclaim.’ (Filmkurier, 22 December 1927)
In 1954, Reiniger created Cinderella once more, this time as a sound film.
Christel Strobel, Lotte Reiniger: The Fairy Tale Films DVD booklet (BFI, 2009)
The Seashell and the Clergyman
Germaine Dulac remains best remembered for The Seashell and the Clergyman, banned in Britain after the BBFC called it ‘so cryptic as to be almost meaningless’, adding that ‘if it has a meaning, it is doubtless objectionable’. Its meaning was hotly contested: according to legend, it sparked a near-riot at its premiere in February 1928 as various surrealists objected to differences between her film and Antonin Artaud’s scenario about a priest who lusts after a general’s wife – despite Artaud recording his satisfaction with Dulac’s interpretation.
Before moving into film in 1915, Dulac edited the feminist review La Française and wrote plays. She established herself with The Smiling Madame Beudet (1922), a feminist work about a smart woman in a loveless marriage, and impressed critics with L’Invitation au voyage (1927). The Seashell and the Clergyman’s poetic qualities shine through: with its simmering sexuality, dreamlike overlays and fractured perspectives, it remains the most sensuous attempt to transfer the surrealist sensibility into cinema.
Juliet Jacques, Sight and Sound, October 2015
Peasant Women of Ryazan
This was the most important film made by Olga Preobrazhenskaya, a Russian film pioneer and one of the first women in Europe to stand behind a camera. After beginning as a theatre actress, she made her cinema debut in The Keys to Happiness (1913), directed by Vladimir Gardin and Yakov Protazanov, before becoming the first female Russian film director in 1916 when she made Miss Peasant, a film version of the famous short story by Alexander Pushkin. Shot in the village of Sapozhok, which has remained unchanged for three hundred years, The Peasant Women of Ryazan was the first collaboration between herself and Ivan Pravov, but she was definitely the dominant partner in the duo, with her decision to cast debutants Emma Tsesarskaya and Raisa Puzhnaya in the main roles particularly successful. Although this very popular movie touched on rural themes, as was desired by Soviet propaganda, it still found itself criticised for its insufficiently progressive stance; today, this lack of a propaganda load, so characteristic of movies of the time, is to the film’s advantage.
17th Silent Cinema Festival, Filmoteka Narodowa
Secrets of Nature: Plants of the Underworld
Director: Mary Field
Production Company: British Instructional Films
UK 1930
11 mins
Digital
Cinderella
Director: Lotte Reiniger
Production Company: Institut für Kulturforschung
Collaborators: Carl Koch, Toni Raboldt
Verses specially written by: Humbert Wolfe [Film Society version]
Based on the story by: The Brothers Grimm
Germany 1922
16 mins
35mm
The Seashell and the Clergyman La coquille et le Clergyman
Director/Producer: Germaine Dulac
Assistant Director: Louis Ronjat
Screenplay: Antonin Artaud
Director of Photography: Paul Parguel
Camera Operator: Paul Guichard
Storyboard Artist: Antonin Artaud
Consultant: Yvonne Allendy
Cast:
Alex Allin (the clergyman)
Génica Athanasiou (the woman)
Lucien Bataille (the officer)
France 1928
40 mins
35mm
Peasant Women of Ryazan Baby Riazanskie
Director: Olga Preobrazhenskaya
Production Company: First Studio Sovekino
Cast:
Emma Tsesarskaya
Raisa Pruzhnaya
K. Yastrebitsky
G. Bobynin
O. Narbekova
M. Savelyev
USSR 1927
67 mins
Digital
With live piano accompaniment by Meg Morley
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Programme notes and credits compiled by Sight and Sound and the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
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