During the holiday break I've had time once more to immerse myself in everything Duras, including her films. Most people know her as the author of The Lover and the screenplay Hiroshima Mon Amour (directed byAlain Resnais and for which she received an oscar nomination - best screenplay), but many don't know she also wrote and directed her own films. I've been
delving into them, revisiting ones I've seen before and discovering
others I knew about but had never watched 'til now.
A word of warning— don't expect Hollywood plot lines here. One of the pioneers of cinema's French New Wave movement, Duras' films are experimental, and defy all conventional film making rules.
Judith Revault d’Allonnes, program director of a Duras film retrospective at the Pompidou Centre in 2014 says of Duras:
"She hated commercial films. For her they treated the audience like idiots: did all the work in their place, rolled out a perfectly explicit story for them, chose images that were ultimately illustrative. We have to remember that when she began doing films herself, as a director and not just a screenwriter, it was 1969. Cinema at that time was the expression of a political commitment and action. She wanted to make it a tool that would stimulate the audience’s intelligence and poetic longing. " Read more here.
Duras worked with the great young French actors of the time like Delphine Seyrig, Jeanne Moreau, Melina Mercouri and she was the first director to give Gerard Depardieu a fim role.
Watch his extraordinary and hilarious performance as a washing machine salesman here in Natalie Granger:
He stars again in Le Camion, a film about a lorry that drives all over France, while in a room at her Neuphle-le-Chateau farmhouse, Duras and Depardieu, read the script.
Judith Revault d’Allonnes again —
"What is fascinating is that her projects evolved right up to the last minute. Only three days before filming, Le Camion (The Lorry) was not intended to be what it became. She realised at the last moment that this was not what she wanted to do, so she changed everything, and the entire film became part of that process: Marguerite Duras reading the screenplay to Gérard Depardieu.
Destroy She Said, which I watched in a post xmas lie-about, is going on my favorites list (actually they all are). If you can stand watching it through to the end, there is a strange kind of resolution and it takes me back to all the old fleahouse cinemas in Carlton where we spent hours watching these slow moving (Bergman, Passolini, Antonioni), scenarios filled with the ennui of human existence.
Notice how she favours the technique of " voices off" in most of her films. It is especially so in India Song, which remains my all time favourite. It is with a memory of this film that I begin my memoir My Mother, Duras. You can read my prologue here.
It's tempting to go off on these research tangents and could go on about others, but I must get back to writing, if I want to finish this book soon!!
A final word from Judith Revault d’Allonnes, when asked:
Wikipedia lists Duras' 19 films below:
Jan Cornall is currently adding the finishing touches to her travel memoir, My Mother Duras.
A word of warning— don't expect Hollywood plot lines here. One of the pioneers of cinema's French New Wave movement, Duras' films are experimental, and defy all conventional film making rules.
Judith Revault d’Allonnes, program director of a Duras film retrospective at the Pompidou Centre in 2014 says of Duras:
"She hated commercial films. For her they treated the audience like idiots: did all the work in their place, rolled out a perfectly explicit story for them, chose images that were ultimately illustrative. We have to remember that when she began doing films herself, as a director and not just a screenwriter, it was 1969. Cinema at that time was the expression of a political commitment and action. She wanted to make it a tool that would stimulate the audience’s intelligence and poetic longing. " Read more here.
Duras worked with the great young French actors of the time like Delphine Seyrig, Jeanne Moreau, Melina Mercouri and she was the first director to give Gerard Depardieu a fim role.
Watch his extraordinary and hilarious performance as a washing machine salesman here in Natalie Granger:
He stars again in Le Camion, a film about a lorry that drives all over France, while in a room at her Neuphle-le-Chateau farmhouse, Duras and Depardieu, read the script.
Judith Revault d’Allonnes again —
"What is fascinating is that her projects evolved right up to the last minute. Only three days before filming, Le Camion (The Lorry) was not intended to be what it became. She realised at the last moment that this was not what she wanted to do, so she changed everything, and the entire film became part of that process: Marguerite Duras reading the screenplay to Gérard Depardieu.
Destroy She Said, which I watched in a post xmas lie-about, is going on my favorites list (actually they all are). If you can stand watching it through to the end, there is a strange kind of resolution and it takes me back to all the old fleahouse cinemas in Carlton where we spent hours watching these slow moving (Bergman, Passolini, Antonioni), scenarios filled with the ennui of human existence.
Notice how she favours the technique of " voices off" in most of her films. It is especially so in India Song, which remains my all time favourite. It is with a memory of this film that I begin my memoir My Mother, Duras. You can read my prologue here.
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| Still from India Song |
It's tempting to go off on these research tangents and could go on about others, but I must get back to writing, if I want to finish this book soon!!
A final word from Judith Revault d’Allonnes, when asked:
What is the difference between Marguerite Duras, writer and Marguerite Duras, film-maker?
There is no real difference, but rather a
continuous back-and-forth between the writer and the film-maker. She
adapted or reworked some of her writing for the screen, and her films
have themselves become books; it goes both ways. But what is fabulous
about her cinema is that you can really hear the primitive spoken nature
of her writing. You understand that her writing was meant for
enunciation, to be said and heard. We co-edited a book of interviews [Dialogues] between Marguerite Duras and director Jean-Luc Godard, in which he said that her films are “books, books that see, books that observe”.
 |
| Duras on set of Natalie Granger with Jeanne Moreau and Bruno Nuttyen |
Wikipedia lists Duras' 19 films below:
- Les Enfants (1984)
- Il Dialogo di Roma (1982)
- L'Homme atlantique (1981)
- Agatha et les lectures illimitées (1981)
- Aurelia Steiner (1979)
- Aurélia Steiner (1979)
- Le Navire Night (1979)
- Césarée (1978)
- Les Mains négatives (1978)
- Baxter, Vera Baxter (1977)
- Le Camion (1977)
- Des journées entières dans les arbres (1976)
- Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta désert (1976)
- India Song (1975)
- La Femme du Gange (1974)
- Nathalie Granger (1972)
- Jaune le soleil (1972)
- Détruire, dit-elle (1969)
- La Musica (1967)
Jan Cornall is currently adding the finishing touches to her travel memoir, My Mother Duras.
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