Vanity Fair (1911): with Helen Gardner as Becky Sharp

Literary Nonfiction. Film. Edited by Michael Shields. Dorin Schumacher's VANITY FAIR is a deeply researched and deeply moving account of unsung film pioneer Helen Gardner embodying Becky Sharp in Vitagraph's ambitious 1911 screen adaptation. Schumacher's persona of Gardner's screen presence follows the actor's history through act-by-act sequences of the film. Schumacher, a PhD in French literature, teacher, scholar and writer, searched worldwide for her absent grandmother's traces buried in the suppression of women's contributions to cinema, now shines a spotlight on Gardner's brilliant movie creations.