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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
PhD Thesis Project - Beyond Impressions: Germaine Dulac (1882-1942), her Life and Films, from Aesthetic to Politic
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2022-11-29
2003-03-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Tami M. Williams
2003/03/01
University of California
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PhD Thesis Project - Beyond Impressions: Germaine Dulac (1882-1942), her Life and Films, from Aesthetic to Politic
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BEYOND IMPRESSIONS: GERMAINE DULAC (1882-1942),
HER LIFE AND FILMS, FROM AESTHETIC TO POLITIC
Tami M. Williams / PhD Thesis Project
University of California - Los Angeles




  Feminist, socialist, and pioneer filmmaker of the 1920s French avant-garde, Germaine
Dulac played a founding role in the evolution of the cinema both as art and social prac-
tice. Over the course of her film career (1915-42), she directed more than 30 fiction films,
many marking new cinematic tendencies (from “Impressionist” to “abstract”), and an
equivalent number of newsreels and documentaries. Moreover, Dulac played a leading
role in the innovation, legitimization, and diffusion of French film and film culture
through her prolific writings and lectures, as well as through her presiding roles in cor-
porate, cine-club and social organizations, such as the Société des Auteurs, the
Fédération Française des Ciné-clubs, the International Council of Women, and the
International Institute of Educational Cinema, to name a few. Despite her vast impact
on the cinema, our knowledge of Dulac and her role in film history has been primarily
limited to short biographical overviews and analyses of two or three of her fiction films,
namely her ‘Impressionist’ La Souriante Madame Beudet (1923) and her “Surrealist” La
Coquille et le Clergyman (1927). Their isolated consideration obscures her broader con-
tributions to cinema and feminism.
  Using newly available, original archival resources from Europe and the U.S. (including
scripts, correspondence and legal files), I retrace, recontextualize and reevaluate the
social and aesthetic trajectory of Dulac’s “commercial” and “avant-garde,” “narrative”
and “non-narrative,” “fiction” and “non-fiction” films and projects, within the context of
early 20th century France and of her life and work as a whole. The scope of my analysis
spans the length of Dulac’s life (1882-1942) and is divided into four chapters and periods.
  In my first chapter, I outline Dulac’s family background and her encounters with cer-
tain people, events and tendencies during France’s Belle Epoque, as they impact her
political and aesthetic views, or the paradigmatic alternatives that shape her film
career. I also examine her “women’s portraits” and theater reviews for the feminist
weekly La Française (1906-13), her first theater production L’Emprise (1907), and her
political writings and activism (1906-15). Then, I consider her early filmmaking career
– from her first experiences as a producer for Pathé in 1915 to her first directorial efforts
(Sœurs Ennemies to Le Bonheur des Autres, 1915-18) – in order to measure the histori-
cal significance of her incursion into and “negotiated” course within the French film
industry as a female artist and entrepreneur.
  My second chapter considers Dulac’s corporate, artistic and pedagogical initiatives of
the 1920s, and comprises a historical overview and several inter-textual analyses of
Dulac’s “commercial” and “avant-garde” narrative fiction or “Impressionist” films (La
Cigarette to Princesse Mandane, 1919-28). Taking into account Dulac’s personal goals,
as well as industry constraints, I examine the gender and class politics of these “psy-

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                                             BEYOND IMPRESSIONS: GERMAINE DULAC (1882-1942)

chological” films. Further, in light of confirmed “naturalist” and “symbolist” influences
(from music, theater, photography and dance), and in consideration of Dulac’s concep-
tion of movement, rhythm and “life itself” as specific qualities of the new “cinemato-
graphic art,” I examine the aesthetic, and epistemological shift in her fiction work. I
argue that the crux of this shift, from the use of the “technical effect” to that of “rhythm
within and between the images,” takes place in Dulac’s theories, as well as in her films
in 1924. To this end, I conduct an in-depth analysis of her independently financed fem-
inist short La Folie des Vaillants (1925) which, amongst her narrative films, comes the
closest to fulfilling her ideal of a “visual symphony” and a “pure cinema” free from the
narrative and decorative conventions of literature and theatre.
   My third chapter is devoted to Dulac’s “non-narrative” fiction films (1927-30), which
I examine in light of this shifting aesthetic ideal, as expressed through her writings and
lectures (1924-29), as well as in view of the emerging “specialized cinema” outlets (1926-
30). In particular, I examine the polemic that ensued from Dulac and Artaud’s collabo-
ration on La Coquille et le Clergyman (1927), and which was made famous by the
“Surrealist protest” following the film’s February 1928 screening at the Studio des
Ursulines. Taking into account Artaud’s “Surrealist” vision, I reformulate this polemic
with regard to Dulac’s description of the film as “visual music,” her activism for a
“pure” cinema, and her conception of authorship. The second part of the chapter is
devoted to Dulac’s “abstract” films Disque 957 (1929), Etude cinégraphique sur une
Arabesque (1929), and Thème et Variations (1929), which I examine within the context
of her filmography and writings, as well as in relationship to the work of other film-
makers of the movement.1
   My fourth and final chapter addresses a crucial, but little known period of Dulac’s
career as a non-fiction filmmaker (1931-1942). In the first part, I consider the aesthetic
and social dimensions of her conception of the newsreel, in her work as founding direc-
tor of one of the most important newsreel companies of the period (France-Actualités-
Gaumont, 1931-1935). In the second part, I examine Dulac’s socially and politically
engaged non-fiction films and projects from the Popular Front to Vichy, including both
her unique newsreel-based documentary feature Le Cinéma au Service de l’Histoire
(1935), which explores cinema’s role as a “carrier of history,” and her Socialist propa-
ganda film Retour à la Vie (1936). I also consider her contribution, within the context of
the vast cultural movement Mai 36 and Ciné-Liberté, to the genesis of Jean Renoir’s La
Marseillaise (1938). Finally, I examine and contextualize a number of her fiction and
non-fiction film projects (1938-41) written during the period leading up to Vichy.
Through the broad scope of my analysis and in consideration of the radically evolving
social, political and cultural climate of the period, I aim to provide a more comprehen-
sive understanding of the work of this prolific and ground-breaking woman activist
and filmmaker, and to reestablish its importance in film history.



1 Please see my overview of Dulac’s 1920s work published in 1895 (June and October 2001), and
  my analysis of her “abstract” films in Jeune, Dure et Pure! Une histoire du cinéma expéri-
  mental en France (Paris: Cinémathèque Française, 2001).



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