In 2018, Pamela B Green made a documentary called Be Natural: The Untold Story Of Alice Guy-Blaché about the tenacious French-born pioneering filmmaker. Martin Scorsese famously talked about her as ‘forgotten by the industry she helped to create’, and now comes an extensively researched graphic novel that further illuminates the work of the first female director.

Catel Muller, who specialises in portraying remarkable women such as Josephine Baker, illustrates the book, with words coming from screenwriter and biographer of Henri-Georges Clouzot, José-Louis Bocquet. Sergei Eisenstein and Alfred Hitchcock both cited Guy’s innovative techniques and imaginative storytelling as an influence on their films, and this graphic novel focuses on the integral part she played in cinema’s birth, while also shading in her life from childhood through to death.

While working as a stenographer at Gaumont, her attendance at The Lumière Brothers’ first private cinematograph screening inspired her to make The Fairy Of The Cabbages in 1896. Guy made over 1000 films in her lifetime (though only 150 survive to date), and the elegant black-and-white drawings here beautifully depict a handful of her oeuvre framed in delicately drawn nitrate film stills. Muller also evokes Guy’s enthusiasm for cinema, science and invention by mimicking the shape of a projector light and magical floating particles with creative flair across the novel. It’s a fascinating read that doesn’t just piece together the facts of Guy’s currently unfolding cinema legacy, but dynamically illustrates the robust life of a woman and mother who persistently battled against sexism in her career. 

José-Louis Bocquet & Catel Muller: Alice Guy – First Lady Of Film is out now published by SelfMadeHero.