"Cinema and the Second Sex" provides a critical assessment of women's wide-ranging contributions to the contemporary French film industry, both behind and in front of the camera, from 1981 to the present. The introduction identifies issues in women's film-making and assesses the representation of women within an historical and theoretical framework. Each chapter in the book includes close analysis of 5 or 6 films, and a concluding chapter examines the value and place of women in the current French film industry. (view table of contents)

Provides an original, first-hand view of the potential that motion pictures offered women from the Victorian era, and how, ultimately, the industry rejected one of its first and most important pioneers. Alice Guy Blaché was not only the world's first female director, but in 1896, she became the first of either sex to direct a fictional film. As the first director with the Gaumont Company in Paris, Alice Guy Blaché served as an influential figure in French film history, making more than 300 films, including some of the earliest sound subjects from the turn of the century. She continued her career in the United States, founding the Solax Company in 1910, and producing and directing 350 more films. Complementing the text are reprints of contemporary articles on Alice Guy Blaché from the American trade press, a reminiscence by her daughter, a brief evaluation of the career of her husband, Herbert Blaché and a complete filmography.