Cinema Duras at Anthology Film Archives March 12-18

From March 12th through the 18th, Anthology FIlm archives will be presenting a retrospective of the films of Marguerite Duras as part of the “In the Words of Duras” festival. If you’ve been reading about the great plays and lectures in this festival, which began on February 18, don’t miss out on it’s final week.

It’s appropriate that the festival is ending with film, the medium Duras found later in life and that became an all-consuming passion. It was in the community of her crews that she regained the companionship she had missed since being forced to leave the Communist Party, rekindling the feelings of intense friendship and literary foment of  the informal salon she reigned over on the Rue Saint-Benoît in the apartment she shared with Robert Antelme.The festive atmosphere on a Duras set is legendary;  she often housed and fed the entire crew and cast in her home in Neauphle, and even when her budgets increased, she still insisted on cooking because she claimed no one else could do it better.

It is this feeling that “no one else can do it better” that led Duras to light out on her own in film. She was unhappy with third-party interpretations of her novels for the screen, and after writing original scripts for an illustrious list of  filmmakers that included Alain Resnais and Georges Franju, she decided to launch her own directorial career in 1967. The retrospective’s brochure describes her long and fruitful film career: “Over the next seventeen years, she directed fourteen feature films of her own (as well as numerous shorts), including masterpieces such as NATHALIE GRANGER and INDIA SONG. Exploring the nature and limits of the medium with the same fiercely intelligent, radically experimental approach that makes her writings so singular and important, Duras’s cinema is a crucial component of her life’s work.”

The Durassian themes of the mother, despair, destruction, and love– often with a backdrop of colonialism or the sea– run throughout many of the films listed below. If you have ever read a novel by Duras and been moved by her language, don’t miss this rare opportunity to see her dreamlike films screened in the States.

Mar 12 7:00 PM
DESTROY, SHE SAID / DÉTRUIRE DIT-ELLE
Marguerite Duras
1969, 100 minutes, 35mm. In French with English subtitles. With Catherine Sellers and Michel Lonsdale.

Mar 12 9:15 PM
NATHALIE GRANGER
Marguerite Duras
1972, 85 minutes, 35mm. In French with English subtitles. With Jeanne Moreau, Lucia Bose, and Gérard Depardieu.

Mar 13 4:30 PM
LE NAVIRE NIGHT
Marguerite Duras
1979, 95 minutes, 35mm. In French with English subtitles. With Bulle Ogier, Dominique Sanda, and Mathieu Carrière.

Mar 13 6:30 PM
INDIA SONG
Marguerite Duras
1975, 120 minutes, 35mm. In French with English subtitles. With Delphine Seyrig, Michel Lonsdale, and Mathieu Carrière.

Mar 13 9:00 PM
THE TRUCK / LE CAMION
Marguerite Duras
1977, 80 minutes, 35mm. In French with English subtitles. With Marguerite Duras and Gérard Depardieu.
Mar 14 4:45 PM
CÉSARÉE & L’HOMME ATLANTIQUE
Marguerite Duras

Mar 14 6:15 PM
AGATHA ET LES LECTURES ILLIMITÉES
Marguerite Duras
1981, 90 minutes, 35mm. In French with English subtitles. With Yann Andréa and Bulle Ogier.

Mar 14 8:15 PM
LES ENFANTS
Marguerite Duras
1985, 94 minutes, 35mm. In French with English subtitles.

Mar 15 7:30 PM
CÉSARÉE & L’HOMME ATLANTIQUE
Marguerite Duras

Mar 15 9:15 PM
DESTROY, SHE SAID / DÉTRUIRE DIT-ELLE
Marguerite Duras
1969, 100 minutes, 35mm. In French with English subtitles. With Catherine Sellers and Michel Lonsdale.

Mar 16 7:00 PM
NATHALIE GRANGER
Marguerite Duras
1972, 85 minutes, 35mm. In French with English subtitles. With Jeanne Moreau, Lucia Bose, and Gérard Depardieu.

Mar 16 9:00 PM
LE NAVIRE NIGHT
Marguerite Duras
1979, 95 minutes, 35mm. In French with English subtitles. With Bulle Ogier, Dominique Sanda, and Mathieu Carrière.

Mar 17 7:00 PM
LES ENFANTS
Marguerite Duras
1985, 94 minutes, 35mm. In French with English subtitles.

Mar 17 9:15 PM
INDIA SONG
Marguerite Duras
1975, 120 minutes, 35mm. In French with English subtitles. With Delphine Seyrig, Michel Lonsdale, and Mathieu Carrière.

Mar 18 7:00 PM
THE TRUCK / LE CAMION
Marguerite Duras
1977, 80 minutes, 35mm. In French with English subtitles. With Marguerite Duras and Gérard Depardieu.

Mar 18 9:00 PM
AGATHA ET LES LECTURES ILLIMITÉES
Marguerite Duras
1981, 90 minutes, 35mm. In French with English subtitles. With Yann Andréa and Bulle Ogier.

Tags: Duras, France, French film

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