10 Amazing Films Directed By Women
5. Falling Leaves
Falling Leaves is an incredibly impressive piece of work from an incredibly impressive director. Alice Guy-Blache was a Frenchwoman who began her career in cinema as a secretary at the Gaumont Film Cinema.
Over the years, she worked her way up, and became one of the first film directors, male or female, in 1896 with The Cabbage Fairy. She worked consistently over the next 25 years, unconventionally writing, directing, and running her own studio while married and even pregnant. But her crowning achievement is without a doubt Falling Leaves.
Less than a half hour long and silent, Falling Leaves is nonetheless heartbreaking as it depicts a young girl's desperate attempts to keep her consumptive sister alive. The small child overhears the doctor pronounce that her older sister will die by the time the last leaf falls.
Taking this literally, she goes outside and begins tying the dead leaves back to their branches. This movie came out in 1912, and it was incredibly unique for its time in that it was able to elicit such an emotional reaction from audiences.
It has a fairly sophisticated storyline, and serves as proof that narrative film could touch the hearts of viewers in a very special way, something that many filmmakers, believe it or not, still needed to be convinced of.