61 minutes / Color
English / English subtitles
Release: 2003
Copyright: 2002
Marguerite Duras (1914-1996) - best-known as the author of The Lover and for the screenplay for Hiroshima, Mon Amour (the classic 1960 New Wave film directed by Alain Resnais) - was one of the most prolific, controversial, and renowned cultural figures in post-war France. Between 1943 (when she published her first book) and 1995 (when she published her last - That's All), Duras directed 19 films and wrote more than 70 novels, plays, movies and adaptations.
A friend of Duras, Dominique Auvray was also the editor of three of her films: Baxter, Vera Baxter (1976), Le Camion (1977) and Le Navire Night (1978). Given access to an amazing breadth of archival materials, photographs, television interviews, extracts from Duras' films, and home movies from the 1950's through the 1990's, Auvray has crafted a personal portrait of the woman.
Speaking about her youth and family, Duras discusses her mother and brothers in Indochina and their transposition in Un Barrage Contre Le Pacifique. She also describes her move to Paris to study at the Sorbonne, her loves and friendships there (the famous Rue Saint-Benoit group of 50's Paris, with Robert Antelme, her first husband, Dyonis Mascolo, the father of her son, Edgar Morin, Claude Roy, and many others).
Duras also speaks of her work, her political engagements, and social commitments. And we see her directing a rehearsal of Savannah Bay with Bulle Ogier and Madeleine Renaud in 1984, and on the set of Agatha (1981) and Nathalie Granger (1972), which was shot in her own home.
Throughout the film Marguerite Duras goes from pain to joy, from the serious to the anecdotal, with lightning speed. As it moves along with the years, themes and locations of her life, MARGUERITE AS SHE WAS becomes a moving portrait of a complex woman, mother, journalist, militant, friend, filmmaker and writer.
"This loving portrait of the writer and filmmaker... is poetic, allusive and elusive — much like her art." —The Chicago Reader
"Few documentary makers are able to create the sense of intimacy between subject and viewer that Dominique Auvray has." —Educational Media Reviews Online
"Touching and intimate." —Library Journal
"A vivid portrayal of a dimensional Marguerite Duras: writer, woman, mother, social activist, journalist, friend and filmmaker." —Leonardo: Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Teaching
Select Accolades
A fascinating visit with the legendary writer in her Paris apartment on the Palais Royal circa 1951. And Jean Cocteau drops by.
Yannick Bellon | 2003 | 29 minutes | Color | French | English subtitles
From 1967, for the first time on video or DVD, a portrait of two of the most influential and controversial writers and thinkers of the 20th century. They discuss their work, lives, and the role of intellectuals in modern society.
Max Cacopardo | 2005 | 60 minutes | Color | French | English subtitles
A telephone operator, J.M., falls in love with a mysterious woman, F., entirely by phone.
Marguerite Duras | 2021 | 90 minutes | Color | French | English subtitles
Based on the Marguerite Duras play of the same name, Suzanna Andler is the portrait of a woman trapped in her marriage to a wealthy, unfaithful businessman. She must choose between her conventional destiny as a wife and mother, and her freedom, embodied by her young lover.
Benoît Jacquot | 2021 | 88 minutes | Color | French | English subtitles
Meet the Violette Leduc, who defied taboos by turning her loneliness and "impossible" passions into a great literary career.
Esther Hoffenberg | 2013 | 57 minutes | Color | French | English subtitles
