Alice Guy: First Lady of Film

 Alice Guy is a real life person from the 19th century.  She was one of the pioneers in  filmmaking. Guy was also one of the first filmmakers to make a narrative fiction film, as well as the first woman to direct a film. From 1896 to 1906, she was probably the only female filmmaker in the world. This graphic biography covers her life from childhood to her death in 1969.

The publisher's summary:

In 1895 the Lumière brothers invented the cinematograph. Less than a year later, 23-year-old Alice Guy, the first female filmmaker in cinema history, made The Cabbage Fairy, a 60-second movie, for Léon Gaumont, and would go on to direct more than 300 films before 1922. Her life is a shadow history of early cinema, the chronicle of an art form coming into its own. A free and independent woman who rubbed shoulders with masters such as Georges Méliès and the Lumières, she was the first to define the professions of screenwriter and producer. She directed the first feminist satire, then the first sword-and-sandal epic, before crossing the Atlantic in 1907 to the United States and becoming the first woman to found her own production company. Guy died in 1969, excluded from the annals of film history. In 2011 Martin Scorsese honored this cinematic visionary, “forgotten by the industry she had helped create,” describing her as “a filmmaker of rare sensitivity, with a remarkable poetic eye and an extraordinary feel for locations.” The same can be said of Catel and Bocquet’s luminous account of her life.

This book is over 400 pages. The first and last 100 pages were engaging but I got a little bored in the middle. I must say, though, that the history of movie making is covered in detail. Readers more interested in movies than I will love this novel. Readers will see the progression of filmmaking here. When Guy and other filmmakers began, they made one reel films. Then 5 and 6 reel films became popular, but filmmakers didn't make much money from them, forcing many out of the industry. 

Guy created many firsts in cinema, defining the professions of screenwriter, director and producer.  Another first was her film A Fool and His Money which had an all African American cast. Guy died in 1969 and has been excluded from film history until recently. There are full biographies of her that have been written. It was interesting that she began her career as a secretary to a photographer who worked in chronophotography. Chronophotography is photographs affixed to a round disc. As viewers rotated the photographs movement was created. Then the cinematograph was invented and the rest of history. 

At the back of the book is an extensive section that includes a timeline of pivotal events in the invention of cinema, biographical notes of other filmmakers, and Guy's filmography bibliography. It is a great resource for those interested in movie history.

5 out of 5 stars.

It Won't Always Be Like This

It Won't Always Be Like This is Malaka Gharib's second graphic memoir. The book follows last year's I Was Their American Dream. The storyline covers the author's relationship with her stepmother, which is mentioned in American Dream. 

The publisher's summary:

It’s hard enough to figure out boys, beauty, and being cool when you’re young, but even harder when you’re in a country where you don’t understand the language, culture, or social norms.
 
Nine-year-old Malaka Gharib arrives in Egypt for her annual summer vacation abroad and assumes it'll be just like every other vacation she's spent at her dad's place in Cairo. But her father shares news that changes everything: He has remarried. Over the next fifteen years, as she visits her father's growing family summer after summer, Malaka must reevaluate her place in his life. All that on top of maintaining her coolness!

Malaka doesn't feel like she fits in when she visits her dad--she sticks out in Egypt and doesn't look anything like her fair-haired half siblings. But she adapts. She learns that Nirvana isn't as cool as Nancy Ajram, that there's nothing better than a Fanta and a melon-mint hookah, and that her new stepmother, Hala, isn't so different from Malaka herself.

I enjoyed this coming of age story. It is a realistic portrayal of a child who grows up with divorced parents who are from different cultures. Malaka's mother is Filipino while her father is Egyptian. Her parents met while in the U. S. but when they divorced, Malaka's father moved back to Egypt. Malaka dresses like an American youth, which shocks her father's Egyptian neighbors. The Islamic faith is a big part of the story as Malaka's father and her new stepmother are Muslim. The story solely takes place in Egypt over several summers which Malaka always spent with her father. As she got older, Malaka's dress became an issue. She was expected by both her father and the Egyptians to dress modestly as she she came of age. On one occasion Malaka was groped by a group of boys because they thought she would be easy, given her dress style.

Gharib is a natural storyteller. It seemed like she was speaking to me face to face about her summers in Egypt. She knew what angles of her story would keep me reading and exactly how to write it out. Because the storyline actually happened to her, the writing flowed naturally.

A fantastic read!  5 out of 5 stars.

Measuring Up

 Measuring Up is a YA graphic novel for ages 9 to 12. The plot concerns a young girl who moves from her native Taiwan to Seattle with her parents when she is 12 years old. Cici misses her grandmother back in Taiwan and comes up with a plan to raise the money the family needs to bring her over for a visit. Cici decides to enter a cooking contest that is similar to the Great British Bakeoff where 12 contestants cook each weekend. One contestant is eliminated each week. The only requirement for the contest is to use whatever ingredient is demanded for that particular week. Cici only knows how to cook Chinese food so her challenge was to learn to make American food.

Measuring Up is about much more than the contest. We read how difficult it was for Cici to assimilate into American culture. Her mother filled her lunchbox with Taiwanese food which disgusted her classmates. Finding friends was a challenge because she was culturally Chinese and had to learn how to act like an American. 

Fans of Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese will love Measuring Up. 5 out of 5 stars