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1 Colour by Stencil: Germaine Berger and Pathécolor Film History, Volume 21, pp , Copyright John Libbey Publishing ISSN: Printed in United States of America Colour by Stencil: Germaine Berger and Pathécolor An interview by Jorge Dana, translated by Niki Kolaitis Germaine Berger was eighty-eight years old in 1984, when this interview was conducted at her home in Montreuil, a parisien suburb, for a film on her work as a colourist at the Pathé Studio. She died some months later. Q: When were you born and when did you start working? A: I was born on January 25, 1897 I m from another era. I began working August 26, Q: In a design studio? A: At the Pathé Studios, but the colouring workshop was off premises. The director of the Colour Division at that time was a young newlywed who happened to be out shopping for carved furniture. He singled out a furniture factory to which he returned on several occasions. Obviously, the furniture design esthetic caught his eye and he queried the manufacturer: Is the person who does the furniture carving young? Do they have grown children? Can they draw? Could you introduce them to me? Could you send them to my colour workshop? My sister Lucie and I interviewed at the colour workshop in Vincennes where we were hired on the spot because we knew how to draw. My father was a draughtsman; he personally designed and carved the flowers on the furniture, especially roses. He was also the one who cut them out for their application to the pediments and bases of the furniture pieces all on their way to the factory. Q: What age were you? A: At that time, fourteen and a half. By law, you had to be sixteen before you were eligible for employment; so they obtained an exemption for me. Q: Was this the Pathé studio? Wasn t there an independent workshop in Vincennes, directed by Mme.Thuilier? A: She was in the Colour Division. But she was not the workshop s director; she was in charge of a particular department. It was the director, Mr. Fourel, who oversaw everything. He was in charge of colour, which included the women and the other managers. Q: How many workers were there in his employ? A: We were rather numerous 160 colourists and cutting machine operators, which are two distinct types of work. There were also the technicians who applied ink. Q: Were you adept at both? A: No, it was necessary to be technically trained. I personally did cutting because I had excellent eyesight and eyeglasses were not permissible. And, since we knew how to draw, we were better at it than someone who wasn t skilled in it. When you re using a stencil, you Jorge Dana is a screenwriter and director, born in Argentina, who studied literature and filmmaking in France and Great Britain. He has taughtcinemahistory, film analysis, and filmmaking at the Royal College of Art, Slade Film School, London University, I.N.A.; I.D.H:E.C., Université de Paris Censier, La Sorbonne. Correspondence to jjdana@gmail.com. Niki Kolaitis is a freelance translator; she received a B.A. in French Literature with a minor in Linguistics from George Washington University, and studied for a year at Institut d Etudes Politiques de Paris.

Colour by Stencil: Germaine Berger and Pathécolor FILM HISTORY Vol. 21 Issue 2 (2009) 181 need to know whether to use the same stencil or have recourse to a second one.

2 Colour by Stencil: Germaine Berger and Pathécolor FILM HISTORY Vol. 21 Issue 2 (2009) 181 need to know whether to use the same stencil or have recourse to a second one. When we arrived at the studio, we were promoted quicker than the average employee because of our drawing knowledge. Had we not been skilled draughtswomen, and had we not been skilled at colour application, we would have lagged behind in our career applying ink only. [About 1905, Pathé introduced Pathécolor, a stencil process that involved cutting glass stencils for each frame manually with a pantograph.] Q:: Did you draw much before your employment at the studio? A: Yes! Anything and everything! Q: Had you ever been to the movies before you began working? A: Not ever. In that day and age women were not seen in public. For my sister and I, it was thanks to our drawing ability that we were able to enter factory life and have a career. Q: Had you never been to the movies with your mother or father? You never went out? A: Going out was taboo we didn t have the right! It just wasn t done in that era. When a young lady was engaged to be married, her fiancé accompanied her back home, said goodbye at the doorstep and kissed her once, not twice. Back in those days there were dances in Vincennes and later near the river Seine. A young married woman would have been the object of intense scrutiny if she had missed two Monday soirées in a row, and the husband would have been informed. So you see how tightly reined in we were socially. But my brother, who was the youngest in the family, was permitted to go to the cinema every Thursday. And I who had a career in the film industry was not allowed! Q: Had you ever heard of the cinema or were you not aware of its existence? A: No, never. We weren t allowed to be in-theknow regarding anything. But when we started working in the studio, I wasn t surprised to learn of it. Q: Were you aware that you were creating images that would literally move on the screen? A: No, but we had seen things of that ilk in books and newspapers. Q: How were you trained and instructed at work? A: They never officially trained us they never taught us anything, really, ever except for the strict technique taught us by experienced workers. When they would see that we finally got the feel for a colour, they let us work solely on that colour for a long time. Q: One solitary colour? A: Yes, only one colour. For example, blue and flesh tones were difficult to perfect: you had to cut a stencil all around to get flesh precisely right. Blue was really sky blue. So, we had to stencil around trees in order to discern whether a part of the tree was incorporated into the sky or remained green. Thus, the longer they left us with a solitary colour, the more expert we would become. After several years experience in this aspect, if we showed a particular flair and talent professionally, then they d let us do everything. I learned how to apply colour via a hand technique. However, I did work on a few machines which produced colour, but they were scarce. Q: Which colours were you most adept at? A: Almost all. Fig. 1. Germaine Berger (in the middle of the second row) and other colourists at the Pathé Studio.

3 182 FILM HISTORY Vol. 21 Issue 2 (2009) An interview by Jorge Dana, translated by Niki Kolaitis Q: From the outset? A: No, after my first six months, when they were confident in my drawing ability and comprehension. There was only one shade of red! The mélange of red with other pigments such as blue or yellow in order to create different shades of red was prohibited. Q: At work, did you ever pose questions as to the exact nature of cinema? A: No, not at all. Q: Did they ever screen films? A: From time to time, they let us examine our accomplishment if it was particularly good. We did good work from the start. Q: Did you ever go to the movies between 1911 and 1927? A: No, because we couldn t afford it. We were paid a modest weekly salary and we had to bring the paycheck home and live within our means. Q: Was your work personally satisfying? A: Yes, I was very content. The more one understood the studio s design esthetic, the less you bothered your neighbors. This way, the workflow was smoother and production faster. Q: What were the working conditions? A: They were strict with us and did not encourage chattering and socializing. We had all we needed in that room. For lunch, one could either eat outside or in the workshop. It was all very supervised. Photographs of the workshop were prohibited. The Pathé house forbade many things. Q: Women only? A: In the workshop, women only. Men were the machinists and electricians. Q: Why were there only women? A: It was too finely detailed a job for men, something I understood only as I grew older. In those days, men didn t touch the actual film stock. Today, it makes me chuckle when I see men actually doing film editing. In my day, they didn t touch anything, except for the actual manufacture of the film stock, with the large galley proofs. Women couldn t do that back then. Q: You mentioned a siren at Pathé? A: Yes, the one at the factory, not at the colour workshop. The siren is still there but no longer in use. Back then, it was so loud you could hear it all the way to the Place de la Nation neighborhood it guided the timing of our workday. It sounded at 7:30 a.m., at noon, at l:30 p.m. and again at 6 p.m. Q: Do you recall the first film you ever saw? A: I saw so many of them simultaneously because I was working on them with my hands! Q: When you knew Georges Méliès, would he have his films coloured at Pathé? A: I met Méliès shortly after the War. When he had enough money, he would come to Pathé to have his films coloured. He had high overhead with payroll and as it was a very expensive process and he had huge overhead expenses, he couldn t always afford to have them coloured at Pathé. When he could afford it, he sent his films there. Behind me, in the workshop, there was a floor devoted to management. One day, my colleague seated next to me heard footsteps, turned around and said: Hey, here comes the madman! I told her I wasn t aware of any madman on the premises. She responded: Well then you haven t met the madman of Montreuil! It was in Montreuil, after all, that Méliès established the first film studio in the world! I myself had been living in Montreuil since Mind you, we weren t allowed to turn around or speak at work. Some time later, Méliès returned to see if his films were ready. My colleague once again repeated: The madman is back. Why do you call him crazy? I queried her. You simply haven t seen his films she responded. I said no, I hadn t. Well, she continued, in one of his movies he actually took the place of one of his actors. In the script, he had to run and jump! His nickname was madman because he was always sprinting somewhere. Q: You had no idea his name was Georges Méliès?

4 Colour by Stencil: Germaine Berger and Pathécolor FILM HISTORY Vol. 21 Issue 2 (2009) 183 A: No, I didn t find out until after the War. I had seen him several times, but we didn t speak. He would go up to see management, then he d come back downstairs again. That was it. Q: Subsequently, you saw his films? A: Yes, of course, because his youngest daughter had them in her possession. She kept them in her home quite risky because film stock of that era was notoriously flammable. Q: Did you actually tint any of Méliès films? A: Yes, of course I did. Q: Were you familiar with Méliès studios in Montreuil? A: Yes, after World War I. But later on his home and his studios were seized [bankruptcy]. Q: Do you remember seeing other film stars? A: Max Linder, the actor. I was well acquainted with his films. Q: What year did you leave Pathé Studios? A: In 1927, when they ceased colouring films by hand with the advent of colour film stock. Tinting film by hand was becoming ruinously expensive and the colour services division was shut down. Subsequently, I worked for American companies for the next fifteen years. I worked on film editing since there was no more colouring to be done. I changed companies several times for purposes of job advancement. As at Pathé, I learned how a movie is created. They were constantly showing us around the film lab: they would insert the film stock into developing tanks; huge silver cylinders onto which the film stock was mounted. The cylinder would turn and we would cut the film into 35 millimeter strips; when the film strip was hot, we would perforate its edges. I learned that there and was later able to impart that knowledge to others. Then, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer shut down and sold its divisions to yet another company that had its own personnel so we were let go. I broke into television where I worked for twelve years. There, I finely honed my craft and once again imparted my knowledge to others. Q: When you stopped working in 1927, feature-length movies were already in vogue. Do you have any particular reminiscences of feature-length films that you personally had a hand in tinting? A: Yes, I had hand coloured many films by then. Moreover, they needed to be re-coloured on an annual basis. Every year, for example, The Life of Christ, which was very popular, had to be retinted. Sometimes, entire films were shredded due to overuse. Unfortunately, we couldn t refashion the film in its entirety; only certain more damaged passages it was quicker and less expensive. Q: How much were you paid at that time? A: We were paid 21 French Francs on a weekly basis; one coin in gold and the other in silver! The men who worked in the studios on nearby grounds who were responsible for the actual manufacture of large cinema posters and did heavy manual labor would call us the darlings (poules) of Pathé because we earned more than they. They only made 15 francs per week. There were many factories on the grounds of our studio and the men had it in for us because we were better compensated than they were. Abstract: Colour by Stencil: Germaine Berger and Pathécolor, An interview by Jorge Dana, translated by Niki Kolaitis In a 1984 interview, Germaine Berger describes her work as a film colourist for Pathé, where she was hired at the age of fourteen in Creating the stencil-coloured prints was delicate work for which only women were hired. Working conditions in the factory are described. When Pathé s colouring operation ceased in 1927, Berger continued to work in the industry until the arrival of television. Key words: Pathécolor, Georges Méliès, Motion picture colour processes

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