Элси Джейн Уилсон: Австралийский режиссер эпохи немого кино

Australian film director

Elsie Jane Wilson (7 November 1885 – 16 January 1965) was a cinema actress, director, and writer during the early film era. She took part in the productions of the silent film era and starred in over thirty films. Between the years of 1916 and 1919, Wilson was credited for producing, She was best known in the genres of dramas and comedy dramas.

Elsie Jane Wilson was born in Sydney, Australia. She began her career as a professional actress at the age of two. She credited her success to participating in the English Christmas Pantomime every year, allowing her to gain training and experience for the pictures. Wlison acted in London, South Africa, and New York City. She toured Australia and New Zealand with a number of J. C. Williamson companies, where she met and married Rupert Julian in 1906. They immigrated to New York, United States in 1913 and eventually found work as actors in Hollywood under Joseph de Grasse.

Wilson and Rupert moved to Los Angeles in 1914 to pursue Universal Studios’ Rex Company. Wilson took a break from Universal and starred in films from other studios including American Studios. She appeared in Oliver Twist (1916) and other Paramount movies, then in 1917 returned to Universal and started her producer/directorial career, mainly in light comedies. It was noted in The Pittsburg Press in 1916 that her supportive role in Temptation was a "pronounced success". She started her solo director career in 1917 with her film “The Little Pirate” which released on September 10, 1917. According to the reviews of the day, Wilson was a modest filmmaker, being best appreciated for eliciting good performances from otherwise indifferent talent. Her work was seen as artistic, enjoyable and popular in the film industry. Wilson featured as many female roles in her films and tended to appeal to child and female audiences. When writer Frances Denton of Photoplay visited Universal Studios in 1918, she described the work that Wilson was creating as “sob stuff” and was noticed as one of the female directors at Universal that created films centering around children. “The Game’s Up”, released in 1919, marked the end of Wilson's career.

Historians noted Universal Studios for their feminist politics. Elsie Jane Wilson's case exemplifies how genre and gender, up until 1918,worked together to establish the institution's division of labor. Work and genres became gendered because the institution thought of gender in a particular manner. During this time, Universal was more hierarchal than collaborative. Moving Picture World began to identify such films as “woman’s features”, including Wilson's solo directed films, separating “women” from the word “director”. This begins to exclude the women from the director's chair. The Moving Picture Weekly recorded Wilson as Bluebird's noted woman producer. Her work played upon gender roles. In one of the films directed by Wilson, The Dream Lady (1918), the plot highlights gender visibility and insisting that gender is a performance.

Wilson survived her husband, who died in 1943. Wilson died in Los Angeles, California, at age 79, and was buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California alongside her husband. Much of Wilson's personal work has been destroyed over the century though her efforts have not gone unnoticed by the “Women Film Pioneers Project” and various other cinematic references from the times.