Sixty-three of the movies that Alice Guy Blaché made while working for Gaumont are collected on the DVD Gaumont Treasures. Disk 1 is dedicated entirely to Blaché. While just a drop in the bucket of the work she did when she was there, it is a fascinating exploration of how quickly her work and voice grew.
The Nature and Genius of Alice Guy Blaché by Khanisha Foster
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
I was pleased to be asked to attend the first Italian Stories Day hosted by the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers and the Istituto Luce Cinecittà and Italian Audiovisual Producers Association at Mr. C in Beverly Hills. The three groups share the mission of helping more Italian authors see their work produced for the international film and television markets.
I had the pleasure of hearing about new books that we Americans will be able to read once their English translations are complete (within the next year) from authors like Tiziana Triana, author of Luna Nera – Le Città Perdute (Vol I) (Black Moon – The Lost Cities, Vol 1) which deals with witch hunters of 17th century Italy and how that affected women who yearned to gather knowledge; Stefania Auci, a Sicilian teacher and author of the historical novel Florence, published in 2015 by Baldini e Castoldi; and Edoardo Albinati, author of La Scuola Cattolica (The Catholic School).
I also had the chance to reconnect with Leonilde Callocchia, the Attaché at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura who hosted our Mentoris Book Launch last year, and a few producers I was able to invite to come to our Stephens College MFA workshops this August while we all munched on some marvelous brunch.
My Second-year MFA candidate Randi Barros and I spent the morning on set at the Manhattan Beach Studios watching a filmed table read of Barros’ script “Springtime in September.” A winner of this year’s ‘She Called Action’ 35 Pilot Table Read Contest, the script concerns a suddenly single mother dealing with dating in the new era.
This “She Called Action” event was created by Cheryl Rodes of the women-owned production company Rodes Unpaved, dedicated to putting women as the heroes of the story.
But for her, it started with Heartburn which is the novel she wrote about her own divorce from Carl Bernstein — the Carl Bernstein of All The President’s Men because he had an affair behind her back when she was pregnant. So she dumped him and then she wrote a book about it which became a movie starring Meryl Street and Jack Nicholson. From that, she went on to write Silkwood which is a brilliant film you should check out. Meryl Streep. It’s based on the real-life woman named Karen Silkwood who is about to give secrets to the government about how her nuclear facility was being mismanaged and she ended up crashed on the side of the road dead and nobody knew exactly how that happened. So that’s a brilliant — so she went from drama, drama, to comedy and then, of course, we know the other movies. My Blue Heaven is one of my favorites that got dismissed because didn’t make a lot at the box office but it is quite charming. It’s the witness protection program and it’s Steve Martin as a mafiosi in the program right and Rick Moranis is his his watcher and he doesn’t play by the rules he’s supposed to play and t’s funny as heck. So she’s Nora Ephron. She’s really she’s so brilliant that’s a Nora Ephron Prize you can win if you’re a screenwriter at the Tribeca Film Festival. That’s how important she is to the business right?
Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses the women in her new book “When Women Wrote Hollywood” which covers female screenwriters from the Silents through the early 1940s when women wrote over 50% of films and Frances Marion was the highest paid screenwriter (male or female) and the first to win 2 Oscars. Yet, she fails to appear in film history books, which continue to regurgitate the myth that male directors did it all – even though it’s been proven that the only profitable movies Cecil B. de Mille ever directed were all written by Jeannie Macpherson film ever won for Best Picture was written by Robert E. Sherwood (who people have heard of, mostly due to his connection to Dorothy Parker) and Joan Harrison.
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
If you have friends who were interested in reading but low on cash, tell them to check it out.
And this is a reminder that if you want your local library to carry a copy, you need to ask a librarian. They have a form you can fill out that requests what books you’d like in their stacks. You can also send or give them this flyer with all the pertinent information!
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
KPFK’s Andrew Tonkovitch interviewed Paperback L.A. Editor Susan La Tempa for Bibliocracy Radio last weekend and they had nice things to say about how fun my piece on the writers of The Monkees and how much he had misunderstood the band until he read my article.
They discuss the whole anthology in this interview, and touch on The Monkees around the 20:20 mark.
Host Andrew Tonkovitch interviews editor Susan LaTempa, June 16, 2019 about the Paperback L.A. Book 3, A Casual Anthology: Secrets. SigAlerts. Ravines. Records.
He says, “This one is titled, joyfully, ‘Secrets, Sigalerts, Ravines, Records.’ Once again, this compendium-meets-literary/artistic collage includes both new discoveries and reminders, with a multi-media collection including fiction, nonfiction, photography, lists– a free-form provocation which, after reading, will inspire readers to pursue recommended or featured writers, topics, historical moments, artists and places. It’s a little hard to describe but you will know it — and love it! — when you see it.”
Editor Susan La Tempa hosted all the local contributors at the event space in the Helms Bakery district, which gave us a chance to check out that lovely landmark. Then I had the chance to meet Lisa See – author of On Gold Mountain, which tells the story of 4 generations of her Chinese-American family living in Los Angeles and running a factory, an antique shop and a restaurant popular with the Hollywood crowd of the 1930s and 40s. We had first heard of her book when Doug and I were docents at the Autry Western Heritage Museum in Griffith Park and they had a whole exhibit dedicated to telling the story of the book (which it turns out Lisa curated!) It was so popular an exhibit that it hung around long enough for Joseph to be born and to become old enough to play in the little mini restaurant they set up with pots and plates and menus. So it was wonderful to hear Lisa read an excerpt from the book and then to talk to her during the book signing segment of the afternoon.
I was also deeply impressed by the way Susan opened the event with a native Tongva greeting – something I had only seen done at the public events we attended in New Zealand where everyone began events with the traditional Maori greeting where you introduce yourself in terms of what is your mountain, your river, and your ancestry. Beautiful! So hearing it in Los Angeles was a lovely idea we all ought to emulate.
Then the super cool thing was that several friends made the trip down to Culver City – thanks Duke and Dena Jackels and Dan and Liz Forer – and Euphemia – for coming to the reading, and for buying books!
While we at Screenwriting Research Network strive to force a focus on screenwriters, we need allies in the non-academic world to properly credit them.
In that vein, I recently wrote to the Guardian’s film critic about a moment in his review of ‘Gangs of New York’ where he credited the director for a visual moment that occurred, clearly and firstly, in the original script — something that happens far too frequently. Often, such letters yield nothing outside of getting the issue off my chest, but today I received this response:
“Dear Dr Welch: many thanks for your email, which has been passed on to me. Your comment is entirely fair: I should have credited this moment to the screenwriters: Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian and Kenneth Lonergan. With all good wishes,”
I received this response after sending this email to The Guardian’s film desk:
“As a professor of Screenwriting History for an MFA program in the U.S. I greatly enjoy sharing your reviews of American films with my students, so I hope you don’t mind my noting a small mistake I found while researching your review of Gangs of New York – but again, being a professor of Screenwriting History (not film history because film history is the history of directors) I found you fell victim to one of the age-old issues of the old auteur theory. You credited a visual moment to the director when, in fact, it had existed in the original script, therefore the credit ought to have gone to the writer(s) and their imaginations and use of quality research.”
“The streets erupt in a saturnalia of lawlessness, to which the director adds an inspired touch: an escaped elephant from Barnum’s circus trumpeting down the rubble-strewn streets.”
Yet that elephant was in the script (which I researched at the WGA Library in Los Angeles) all along, as you can see:
“116 EXT. CANAL STREET DAWN
The first thing we see is an ELEPHANT, who trumpets fearfully at the sudden sound of the shattered door. The gang stops, wary of this huge refugee from Barnum’s Museum, but the animal is more frightened of them. It hurries on down the street…”
I only make this point because those kinds of errors lead to the continued idea that directors are the only authors of a film – an idea most film programs are debunking by the day. I hope critics (since they are also writers) will remember screenwriters more prominently in their work in the future. I have taken to reminding people that, when you speak of your favorite films you rarely recount memorable camera angles, but in fact you recount your favorite dialogue and that is the realm of the writer. Often, as in this instance, many of the visuals credited to directors were first imagined by writers as well.
So let’s talk about some women you know and some women you don’t know and hopefully, you will — as I said. These are ladies, hopefully, you’ll recognize. Anybody? (Audience: Shonda Rhimes) Shonda Rhimes! Thank goodness. We must all know Shonda Rhimes. (Audience: Is that Diablo Cody?) That’s Diablo Cody. Exactly, from Juno. This lady — you have probably seen more movies than any of theirs combined. (Audience: Is that Jane Fonda?) No, looks a lot like her though. doesn’t she? Nora Ephron. Nora Ephron, right? Incredible. So these are people that I think you recognize. There’s Nora Ephron. Nora Ephron is probably the queen of screenwriting. She passed away a few years ago, but you’ve seen probably all these films or you’ve heard about them mentioned in popular culture places. You’ve seen parodied on The Simpsons. That’s how embedded in popular culture they are, right? I mean, “When Harry Met Sally” is a classic. it is something that everyone references when they think of rom-coms.
Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses the women in her new book “When Women Wrote Hollywood” which covers female screenwriters from the Silents through the early 1940s when women wrote over 50% of films and Frances Marion was the highest paid screenwriter (male or female) and the first to win 2 Oscars. Yet, she fails to appear in film history books, which continue to regurgitate the myth that male directors did it all – even though it’s been proven that the only profitable movies Cecil B. de Mille ever directed were all written by Jeannie Macpherson film ever won for Best Picture was written by Robert E. Sherwood (who people have heard of, mostly due to his connection to Dorothy Parker) and Joan Harrison.
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
![08 Nora Ephron from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute 9 seconds)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/csuf-rmw-w3h-08.jpeg)
![Rosanne Reads at Paperback LA 3 Launch Party [Photos]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/DSC09388.jpg)
![Rosanne Reads at Paperback LA 3 Launch Party [Photos]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/IMG_4246.jpg)
![Rosanne Reads at Paperback LA 3 Launch Party [Photos]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/IMG_4385.jpg)
![Rosanne Reads at Paperback LA 3 Launch Party [Photos]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/IMG_4388.jpg)
![07 Women You May Know from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (55 seconds)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/csuf-rmw-w3h-07.jpeg)