Véronique Le Bris: "The work of women in cinema is completely atomized"

Guest of Rémi Bostsarron in Europe Midi, the journalist Véronique Le Bris returned to her work "100 great films of female directors".

A book in which she talks in particular about the invisibilization of women in cinema and their difficulties in being recognized in this environment.

An observation that she hopes to see change.

From

Cabbage Fairy

to

Wonder Woman

, it's a bit of the story of women and when they took over the cinema.

In her book 

100 great films by

female

directors,

published by Arte and Gründ, journalist Véronique Le Bris looks back on the invisibility of women in this sector of culture and on the idea that the female cinematographic gaze has been obscured for many years. .

Invited from Europe Midi, the founder of cine-woman.fr, the first female webmagazine on cinema, considered that their work in the cinema had been "atomized".

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"Be aware of the work of women"

In this work, Véronique Le Bris indeed describes a neglected gaze of the woman and to which it is absolutely necessary to have access today.

"Women have always worked in the cinema, since the beginning, and Alice Guy is notably one of the pioneers. The only thing is that their work is completely atomized. Suddenly, we never recognize it", estimated the journalist. 

And for good reason, according to her, the general public largely assimilates cinema to the male sex.

“When you ask people for their favorite film or director, it's always going to be a man's film. Just because the works of women haven't been brought together, there's no mass effect, and their work is a bit by the way. So I thought it was important to bring it together, bring it together, so that we are aware of it, "she continued. 

"The history of cinema was written by men"

According to Véronique Le Bris, this lack of highlighting of women in cinema can be explained by two reasons.

"First of all because it was men who wrote her History. And in addition, they are critics. So they have a very subjective vision. And since the themes that could possibly be developed by women escape them, and well they don't talk about it, they even despise them. While there is a whole section of the population that interests. "

To illustrate her point, the author notably takes as a first example in her work the film

La fée aux choux

, directed by Alice Guy in 1896. "Finally, it is the first fiction in the history of cinema and is attributed to her little this merit. In addition, no one knows her while she had a career in France for ten years, but also in the United States. Which is just exceptional for a pioneer ", regrets the journalist.

Especially since Alice Guy herself spoke a lot about women and gave them a lot of leading roles. 

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Women were also often the first to tackle certain themes such as female homosexuality, the life of a housewife or even a central subject today: rape and the culture of rape.

"As women directors have always been confined to the margins in cinema, they need to be more daring to at least stand out from the crowd and try to succeed in making their films. So indeed, they are always at the forefront. -guarding currents, at the forefront of what will happen next. And they deal with themes that are never addressed by men, "continued Véronique Le Bris. 

No longer just being daring

For her, highlighting all these forgotten pioneers is also a way of showing the way to young women who would like to embark on a world that is still very masculine.

“I hope that will give them some knowledge of their history first, because there is a pretty powerful characteristic in women, and that is that they don't know they have a history. will already strengthen them ", wished the author. 

>> READ ALSO

- Cinema: women and minorities still clearly under-represented in Hollywood 

But that's not all she hopes for the future of women in cinema.

"Certainly they have to see that they can work in different genres, that they can allow themselves to cross boundaries and boundaries and be daring. But what would be good is if they didn't are more simply daring but also integrated into the system. "