New Orleans Review LOYOLA UNIVERSITY VOLUME 19 NUMBERS 3 & 4/$18.00 Cover: "TI1e Paradox of William Tell" (llomage to Archimboldo The Marvelous) By jose Mnrta C!mdf11 Polychromated Polywestem , New Orlea11S 1992 Height: 31 i11chcs New Or leans Review Fall & Winter 1992 The New Orleans Review will be on sabbatical during the 1993 calendar year. No submissions will be accepted until further notice. Editors John Big u e net John Mosier Editorial Assistant & Design Kimberly St. germain Contribut ing Editors Bert Card u llo David Estes Jacek Fuksiew icz A lexis Gonzales, F.S.C. Andrew H o rto n Peggy M cCo rmack Rainer Schulte Founding Editor Miller Willia m s The N ew O rleans Review is published by Loyola University, New Orleans, Lou isiana 7011 8, United Sta tes. Cop yrig ht © 1992 by Loyola University. Conte nts listed in the PMLA Bibliography a nd the index of American Period ical Verse. US ISSN 0028-6400 The N ew O rleans Review w ill be on sabba tical d uring the 1993 ca lend ar year. No s ubmissions will be accepted until further no tice. NEW ORLEANS REVIEW CONTENTS FALL & WINTER 1992 VOLUME 19 NUMBER 3 & 4 Alice Guy: Forgotten Pioneer of the Narrative Cinema Wheeler Winston Dixon 7 Alba Barry Spacks 16 Still Life Daniel Bourne 17 Sunday Afternoon, Sunday Evening M.E. Liu 18 Midnight Jan Rejzek/tr. Dominika Winterova and Richard Katrovas 24 If I Could Svetlana Burianovaftr. Dominika Winterova and Richard Ka.trovas 25 The Swans of Prague Zdena Bratrsovskfi/tr. Dominika Winterova and Richard Katrovas 26 Prague Fisherman Josef Simonjtr. Dominika Winterova and Richard Katrovas 27 Troja at Eight in the Evening Karel Sys/tr. Dominika Winterova and Richard Katrovas 28 Night at the Singles Dorm Jirf Zdcek/tr. Dominika Winterova and Richard Katrovas 29 A Walk Around the Brewery Ivan Wernisch/tr. Dominika Winterova and Richard Katrovas 30 Learning French Robert Hildt 31 Under the Williamsburg Bridge Stanley H. Barkan 37 Sunflower Claudio Rodriguez/tr. Elizabeth Gamble Miller 38 Armentrout Robert Clark Young 39 Lacuna Phyllis Sanchez Gussler 48 The Follower Mark SaFranko 50 Caracole Lucinda Roy 58 Manzoni's Dead Daughters Rita Signorelli-Pappas 60 Balboa in Spring Katherine Soniat 61 Nights Max Gutmann 62 Let Me Tell You About Happiness Peter Cooley 67 Lines on the Winter Solstice Christopher Merrill 68 Out of the Past: The Private Eye as Tragic Hero Jam es F. Maxfield 69 Fishing The Black Branch Sandra Nelson 76 Carl's World George Angel 77 The Voice, Resumed Yves Bonnefoy/tr. Lisa Sapinkopf 81 On Snow-Laden Branches Yves Bonnefoyjtr. Lisa Sapinkopf 82 Italy or Florida MaryEllen Beveridge 84 The Hidden Structure of Wise Blood Erik Nielsen 91 The Poet as Woman Karl Precoda 98 Parting at Kalemegdan Milos Crnjanskijtr. David Sanders and Dubravka Juraga 108 A Bintel Brief Aaron Retica 109 Watersong Michael Spence 117 The Year of Living Dangerously: An East-West Dialectic Linda C. Ehrlich and David Dungan 118 Quiet Saul Yurkievichjtr. Cola Fran zen 125 Seeking Out the Absent One of Samuel Beckett's Film Jean Walton 126 The Limits of Translation T. Alan Broughton 136 Shaky Ground Ron MacLean 137 Two Poets by an Open Window Stanley H. Barkan 144 Mr. Overton's Solution: On Systems in Thought Bruce E. Fleming 146 The Gentleman of the Footprints Vivian Lamarqueftr. Renata Treitel 153 The Idea of Disagreement in the Criticism of Martin S. Dworkin Bernard f. Looks 154 Yes Joe Bolton 161 Hurt into Poetry: The Political Verses of Seamus Heaney and Robert Bly Jeffery Alan Triggs 162 The Outlaw as Figure, The Figure as Outlaw: Narrativity and Interpretation in Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid Barry W. Sarchett 174 Recognitions T. Alan Broughton 182 Between Hysteria and Death: Exploring Spaces for Feminine Sagri Dhairyam 183 Crossing Trajectories in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter L. Ta etzsch 192 Alice G11y 8/aclu! Courtesy of tire Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 6 NEW ORLEANS REVIEW Wheeler Winston Dixon ALICE GUY: FORGOTTEN PIONEER OF THE NARRATIVE CINEMA t has long been a source of wonder to there is, to date, not one mainstream film I me that many women have not seized history text which even mentions the work of upon the opportunities offered to them Alice Guy and her numerous contributions to by the motion picture art to make their the development of filmic narrative and syn­ way to fame and fortune as producers of tax. Her work is covered in Ephraim Katz's photodramas. Of all the arts there is prob­ Film Encyclopedia, it is true, and more exten­ ably none in which they can make such sively in Louise Heck-Rabi's recent Women splendid use of talents so much more Directors: The Critical Reception, as well as natural to a woman than to a man and so Anthony Slide's text, Pioneer Women Direc­ necessary to its perfection. tors. Alice Guy's Memoirs, translated by There is no doubt in my mind that a Roberta and Simone Blache, and edited by woman's success in many lines of en­ Anthony Slide, were finally published in this deavor is still made very difficult by a country only in 1986. strong prejudice against one of her sex But most widely circulated classroom texts, doing work that has been done only by such as Mast's A Short History of The Movies, men for hundreds of years. Of course ignore Alice Guy's life and works completely. this prejudice is fast disappearing and This is, I think, a major oversight. Guy is, there are many vocations in which it has according to Katz, "the world's first woman not been present for a long time. In the director, and possibly the first director of arts of acting, music, painting and litera­ either sex to bring a story film to the screen" ture, woman has long held her place (Katz 519-20). The latter claim is based on her among the most successful workers, and production of La Fee Aux Chaux (1896), a one­ when it is considered how vitally all of reel version of a French fairy tale in which these arts enter into the production of children are "born" in a cabbage patch, much motion pictures one wonders why the in the manner of the "stork delivering ba­ names of scores of women are not found bies." Guy's work was registered with the among the successful creators of French copyright office as a Gaumont pro­ photodrama offerings. (Blanche, duction, which indeed it was, and stills of the "Woman's Place . .. ") film still survive today. I have seen produc­ In most cinema histories, the names of a tion stills of the film being shot, showing Ms. number of male directors figure prominently Guy standing between two of her y oung in the development of the narrative cinema. "stars" of the film, one of whom is Yvonne­ Edwin S. Porter, Cecil Hepworth, D. W . Mugnier Serand. Thus, with this 1896 film, Griffith, and other male filmmakers are al­ Ms. Guy becomes the first narrative director ways mentioned. Indeed, Edwin S. Porter is in motion picture history. Indeed, her film routinely given credit as the "father" of the predates Porter's Fireman by more than six narrative film for his 1902 Edison production years.1 of A Day in the Life of an American Fireman, Alice Guy was born to a bourgeois family, which also supposedly contains the first use on July 1, 1875. Her father was a bookseller, of a close-up (that of a hand pulling a fire while her mother tended the home. She was alarm) to advance the film's plot. Griffith's one of four daughters, and the youngest. At Biograph one-and two-reel films are usually the age of 16, she became a stenographer and covered in most film history texts in great typist for various firms, following the death detail, particularly such supposed stand-outs of her father, and in 1896 she went to work for of narrative and syntactical invention as A Leon Gaumont's film company. In that same Corner in Wheat and The Lonedale Operator. But year, Gaumont shifted his operations from DIXON 7 the production of film equipment to the pro­ a director, her relative historical anonymity duction of films themselves, and Ms. Guy seems quite undeserved. became one of Gaumont's first directors. It is Alice Guy's first films used non-profes­ said that she was only allowed to direct films sional actors and actresses; now, she began to on the condition that she do the film during use those professionals who would consent "off hours," and that this work must not in­ to appear in the new, untried medium. The terfere with her "proper" duties as a typist only performers who would risk their careers and stenographer. In any event, Leon and reputations by working in the cinema Gaumont judged h er early directorial efforts were jugglers, acrobats, and vaudeville per­ a distinct success, and although he continued formers, such as Henri Gallet or Roulet­ to insist that she work in his office as a secre­ Plessis. Whomever she was able to induce to tary, he allowed h er to continue to direct as appear in her films, Ms. Guy went ahead, well, backing a number of one-reel shorts using what facilities were placed at her dis­ which Guy directed throughout 1896. posal, making films which cut across all ge­ In an interview with Francis Lacassin (151- neric limitations.