46-412: Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu ( French pronunciation: [maʁɡ(ə)ʁit ʒɛʁmɛn maʁi dɔnadjø] , 4 April 1914 – 3 March 1996), known as Marguerite Duras ( French: [maʁɡ(ə)ʁit dyʁas] ), was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film Hiroshima mon amour (1959) earned her a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at
92-747: A Chinese literary phenomenon entirely shot in Inner Mongolia. The film won the People's Hundred Flowers Award and Golden Rooster in China and a dozen other trophies around the world. Annaud signed a petition in support of film director Roman Polanski in 2009, calling for his release after Polanski was arrested in Switzerland in relation to his 1977 charge for drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl. In 2018, Annaud directed Patrick Dempsey in his 10-part television adaptation of Joël Dicker 's best-seller The Truth about
138-622: A degree in public law in 1936. At the same time, she took classes in mathematics. She continued her education, earning a diplôme d'études supérieures (DES) in public law and, later, in political economy. After finishing her studies in 1937, she found employment with the French government at the Ministry of the Colonies. In 1939, she married the writer Robert Antelme , whom she had met during her studies. During World War II, from 1942 to 1944, Duras worked for
184-567: A few years, in ten, twenty, or thirty years, we will know whether Hiroshima mon amour was the most important film since the war, the first modern film of sound cinema". The film was shown as part of the Cannes Classics section of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and was screened nine times at the Harvard Film Archive between 28 November and 13 December 2014. The film holds a rating of 96% from 47 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes with
230-450: A film in 1975 . She was also the screenwriter of the 1959 French film Hiroshima mon amour , which was directed by Alain Resnais . Duras's early novels were fairly conventional in form, and were criticized for their "romanticism" by fellow writer Raymond Queneau ; however, with Moderato Cantabile , she became more experimental, paring down her texts to give ever-increasing importance to what
276-816: A retelling of the Battle of Stalingrad ( Enemy at the Gates , 2001), filmed in Germany. Soon after, Annaud flew to the ruins of the temples of Angkor and filmed Two Brothers (2004), shot in Cambodia, Thailand and France. He then set out to revive ancient Greece ( His Majesty Minor , 2007), shot entirely in Spain, then Arabia of the late 1930s, directing Antonio Banderas in Tunisia and Qatar in Black Gold (2011). In 2015, Annaud adapted Wolf Totem ,
322-544: A similar effect in Last Year at Marienbad (1961) and The War Is Over (1966). The uncensored version of the film was shown at the Montreal International Film Festival in 1960, but was censored for its Canadian theatrical release. At the 1959 Cannes Film Festival , where the film was excluded from the official selection because of its sensitive subject matter of nuclear bombs and to avoid upsetting
368-416: A wide circle of influential friends, ranging from writers and artists to intellectuals and even criminals. Her friend, the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan , once remarked, "Marguerite Duras turns out to know what I teach without me," in praise of her novel Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein . During the final two decades of her life, Duras experienced significant health problems. In 1980, she was hospitalized for
414-409: Is a 1959 romantic drama film directed by French director Alain Resnais and written by French author Marguerite Duras . Resnais' first feature-length work, it was a co-production between France and Japan, and documents a series of intensely personal conversations (or one long conversation) over slightly more than a 24-hour period between an unnamed French actress and a Japanese architect. The film
460-467: Is notable for Resnais' innovative use of brief flashbacks to suggest flashes of memory, which create a nonlinear storyline . Along with films such as Breathless (1960) and The 400 Blows (1959), Hiroshima mon amour brought international attention to the new movement in French cinema and is widely considered to be one of the most influential films of the French New Wave . In particular, it
506-592: The Academy Awards . Duras was born Marguerite Donnadieu on 4 April 1914, in Gia Định , Cochinchina , French Indochina (now Vietnam ). Her parents, Marie (née Legrand, 1877–1956) and Henri Donnadieu (1872–1921), were teachers from France who likely had met at Gia Định High School. They both had previous marriages. Marguerite had two brothers: Pierre, the older, and the younger Paul. Duras' father fell ill and he returned to France, where he died in 1921. Between 1922 and 1924,
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#1732917607459552-647: The Vichy government in an office that allocated paper quotas to publishers and in the process operated a de facto book-censorship system. She also became an active member of the PCF (the French Communist Party ) and a member of the French Resistance as a part of a small group that also included François Mitterrand , who later became President of France and remained a lifelong friend of hers. Duras' husband, Antelme ,
598-420: The 1990s. She died on 3 March 1996. Samuel Beckett regarded first hearing the radio play "The Square" as a significant moment in his life. In 1992, following a dinner with friends where Duras was dismissed as the most overrated author of the time, journalist Étienne de Montety copied L'Après-midi de Monsieur Andesmas , one of Duras' lesser-known works from 1962. He made only minor changes, such as altering
644-620: The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. His third film, 1981's Quest for Fire ( La Guerre du feu ), received two Césars for best film and best director. After Hothead (1979), a French-language film that became a cult classic in his homeland, he moved to Kenya, Scotland and Canada to shoot Quest for Fire , which brought him international recognition. He subsequently won a César – French National Award – for Best Film & for Best Director. He then directed Sean Connery in The Name of
690-503: The German, but when they leave the tea room, she tells him to go away and that they will probably never see each other again. In her hotel room, she feels guilty about telling the man about the German, but decides to stay in Hiroshima. She goes back to the now-closed tea room, and the man finds her and asks her to stay. She weakly says she will, but then tells him again to go away. They walk around
736-618: The Rose (1986), The Bear (1988), The Lover (1992), Seven Years in Tibet (1997), Enemy at the Gates (2001), Black Gold (2011), and Wolf Totem (2015). Annaud has received numerous awards for his work, including five César Awards , one David di Donatello Award , and one National Academy of Cinema Award. Annaud's first film, Black and White in Color (1976), received an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film . Jean-Jacques Annaud
782-468: The Rose (1986), which was shot in Italian and German monasteries (César for Best Foreign Film and David Di Donatello for Best Director), and is based on Umberto Eco 's popular novel of the same name . The film version, with a screenplay by Andrew Birkin , won two BAFTA Film Awards and was the subject of another 14 wins and two nominations. Annaud spent four years preparing for the film, traveling throughout
828-585: The U.S. government, the film won the FIPRESCI International Critics' Prize, and it won the prestigious Grand Prix from the Belgian Film Critics Association in 1960. For her work on the film, screenwriter Marguerite Duras was nominated for the award for Best Original Screenplay at the 33rd Academy Awards . In 2002, the film was voted by the international contributors of the French film magazine Positif to be one of
874-581: The United States and Europe, searching for the cast and film set locations. He supposedly felt personally intrigued by the project, among other things because of a lifelong fascination with medieval churches and familiarity with Latin and Greek. He then adapted The Bear P.O.V. (César for Best Director, 1988) in the heart of select locations of the Dolomites, Germany, Canada and Austria. He then shot in Vietnam
920-698: The adaptation of Marguerite Duras 's autobiographical novel, The Lover (1992), recreating the atmosphere of colonial Indochina. He then set back out to the Canadian Rockies and directed Wings of Courage , the first 3D fiction film ever made in Imax-3D (1995). In 2000 he wrote and produced Running Free , directed by Sergei Bodrov . Annaud also worked with Brad Pitt when he directed Seven Years in Tibet (1997), shot in Argentina, Canada, Tibet, Nepal and Tyrol. In 2001, Annaud reunited Jude Law and Ed Harris in
966-646: The boarding school she had run. Duras was the author of many novels, plays, films, interviews, essays, and works of short fiction, including her best-selling, highly fictionalized autobiographical work L'Amant (1984), translated into English as The Lover , which describes her youthful affair with a Chinese-Vietnamese man. It won the Prix Goncourt in 1984. The story of her adolescence also appears in three other books: The Sea Wall , Eden Cinema and The North China Lover . A film version of The Lover , produced by Claude Berri and directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud ,
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#17329176074591012-469: The cellar while her hair grew out and she came out of her madness and then sent her away to Paris just before Hiroshima was bombed. She tries to convey the pain she feels about forgetting the German and their love, and indicates she has been trying to keep her distance from the Japanese man because she does not want any more such heartbreak. The man is elated when he learns the woman never told her husband about
1058-471: The city, together and separately, images of Hiroshima alternating with images of Nevers. The woman goes to a train station, where she lets go of some of her issues surrounding her first love and decides she might like to visit Nevers. She takes a cab to a nightclub, the man following. The place is nearly empty and they sit apart. As the sun rises, a Japanese man sits by the woman and hits on her in English. Back in
1104-427: The consensus: "Distinguished by innovative technique and Emmanuelle Riva's arresting performance, Hiroshima Mon Amour is a poignant love story as well as a thoughtful meditation on international trauma." Jean-Jacques Annaud Jean-Jacques Annaud ( French: [ʒɑ̃ ʒak ano] ; born 1 October 1943) is a French film director, screenwriter and producer. He directed Quest for Fire (1981), The Name of
1150-472: The end of her life, Duras published a short, 54-page autobiographical book as a goodbye to her readers and family. The last entry was written on 1 August 1995 and read "I think it is all over. That my life is finished. I am no longer anything. I have become an appalling sight. I am falling apart. Come quickly. I no longer have a mouth, no longer a face". Duras died at her home in Paris on 3 March 1996, aged 81. During
1196-575: The family lived in France while her mother was on administrative leave. They then moved back to French Indochina when she was posted to Phnom Penh followed by Vĩnh Long and Sa Đéc . The family struggled financially, and her mother made a bad investment in an isolated property and area of rice farmland in Prey Nob , a story which was fictionalized in Un barrage contre le Pacifique ( The Sea Wall ). In 1931, when she
1242-614: The first time due to a combination of alcohol and tranquilizers. She also underwent detoxification to address her alcohol addiction. After being hospitalized again in October ;1988, she fell into a coma that lasted until June 1989. In parallel with her health issues during the 1980s, Duras began a relationship with Yann Andréa , a homosexual actor. Yann Andréa helped Duras through her health difficulties. Duras would detail these interactions and companionship in her final book, Yann Andréa Steiner . Duras' health continued to decline in
1288-468: The later stages of World War II, she endured separation from her husband, Robert Antelme, following his imprisonment in Buchenwald . It was during his captivity that she wrote La Douleur . Believing that fidelity was an absurd notion, Duras began an affair with writer Dionys Mascolo while still married to Antelme, creating a ménage à trois . Mascolo later fathered her son, Jean Mascolo. Duras had
1334-472: The man asks the woman to tell him more about Nevers and her life there. Intercut with flashbacks, she tells how she and an occupying German soldier fell in love and planned to elope to Bavaria before he was shot while waiting for her on the day Nevers was liberated , how she stayed with him while he died over the next two days, how the villagers shaved her head when they found out about the relationship, and how her parents locked her alternately in her room and
1380-682: The mother of the crime. The account by Yann Andréa of his relationship with Duras was brought to the screen in a 2022 Claire Simon film entitled Vous ne désirez que moi (a phrase directed at Andréa by Duras) with Swann Arlaud as Andréa and Emmanuelle Devos as journalist Michèle Manceaux, subsequently issued on DVD by Blaq Out. Novels and stories Collections Theatre Screenplays Hiroshima mon amour Hiroshima mon amour ( French pronunciation: [iʁoʃima mɔ̃n‿amuʁ] , lit. Hiroshima, My Love , Japanese : 二十四時間の情事 , romanized : Nijūyojikan no jōji , lit. 'Twenty-four hour love affair'),
1426-508: The names of the characters and renaming the title to Margot et l'important . He sent the result under the alias "Guillaume P. Jacquet" to the three main publishers of Duras: Gallimard, POL and Éditions de Minuit. Éditions de Minuit replied to Guillaume P. Jacquet that "[his] manuscript unfortunately cannot be included in [their] publications"; Gallimard that "the verdict is not favourable"; and POL that "[the] book does not correspond to what [they] are looking for their collections". The facsimile of
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1472-514: The other Japanese, and also required that the film be shot in both countries employing film crews comprising technicians from each. The French scenes were shot in Nevers. However, several scenes from the film located in Nevers were, in fact, filmed in Autun . Among the film's innovations is the way Resnais intercut very brief flashback sequences into scenes to suggest a brief flash of memory. He later used
1518-475: The refusal letters was published in the Figaro littéraire under the title "Marguerite Duras refusée par ses propres éditeurs" ("Marguerite Duras refused by her own publishers"). The 2021 French mini-series Une affaire française (aka A French Case ) depicts Duras (played by a chain-smoking Dominique Blanc ) in a damning light, as she insinuates herself into the investigation of a 1984 child murder case by accusing
1564-447: The top 10 films since 1952, when the magazine was founded. Hiroshima mon amour has been described as " The Birth of a Nation of the French New Wave " by American critic Leonard Maltin . New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard described its inventiveness as " Faulkner plus Stravinsky " and celebrated the film's originality, calling it "the first film without any cinematic references". Filmmaker Eric Rohmer said: "I think that in
1610-404: The woman at the filming location , and she is happy to see him. He takes her back to his house. She asks if he lives alone, and he replies that his wife is out of town for a few days. They both say they are happy in their marriages, though they have had casual affairs before, and make love again. After deciding to spend the woman's remaining time in Hiroshima together, they go to a tea room , where
1656-454: The woman has not seen anything, nor does she know what it is to forget. He is from Hiroshima and his family died in the bombing while he was off fighting in the war , and the woman is a French actress who is in the city to make an anti-war film. In the morning, the woman watches the man sleep. His twitching hand reminds her of her first love, a soldier whose hand moved similarly as he lay dying. The Japanese man wakes, and it becomes clear he and
1702-515: The woman met the previous night at a café. She learns he is an architect who is involved in politics. They discuss the bombing and the end of the war, and he is enchanted by the word " Nevers ", her hometown, to which she never wants to return. The man says he would like to see the woman again, but she says she is flying back to Paris the next day. Neither this nor the revelation that she has children change how he feels, but she, though torn, repeatedly declines to arrange another meeting. The man visits
1748-513: The woman's hotel room, the architect knocks at the door. She lets him in and yells that she is already starting to forget him, but abruptly calms and says his name is "Hiroshima". He responds that it is, and her name is "Nevers". In 1954, while Alain Resnais was editing Agnès Varda 's film La Pointe Courte , he was reluctant to work on it because it was "so nearly the film he wanted to make himself". The film's narrative structure inspired Hiroshima mon amour . According to James Monaco , Resnais
1794-544: Was 17, Duras and her family moved to France where she successfully passed the first part of the baccalaureate with the choice of Vietnamese as a foreign language, as she spoke it fluently. Duras returned to Saigon in late 1932 where her mother found a teaching post. There, Marguerite continued her education at the Lycée Chasseloup-Laubat and completed the second part of the baccalaureate, specializing in philosophy. In autumn 1933, Duras moved to Paris, graduating with
1840-455: Was a major catalyst for Left Bank Cinema . A series of closeups of the backs and arms of a man and woman embracing, amidst falling ash and then covered in sweat. In voiceover , the woman recounts the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima that she has seen on her trip to the city, while newsreel and fictional footage of victims, protests, war memorials, and the streets and buildings of modern Hiroshima are shown. The man calmly says
1886-655: Was born on 1 October 1943 in Draveil , Juvisy-sur-Orge , Essonne , in France. He was educated at the technical school in Vaugirard , and in 1964 graduated from the prestigious film school Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques (IDHEC) in Paris. Annaud began his career by directing television advertisements in the late 1960s to early 1970s. In his first feature film, Black and White in Color (1976), he drew on his personal experience of military service in Cameroon . The film won
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1932-437: Was concerned with a single "ideal" image, at the same time both "an absolute vacant image and an absolute meaningful image," while also focused on the verbal text. They said her films purposely lacked realistic representation, such as divorcing image from sound and using space symbolically. Many of her works, such as Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein and L'Homme assis dans le couloir (1980), deal with human sexuality. Towards
1978-556: Was deported to Buchenwald in 1944 for his involvement in the Resistance, and barely survived the experience (weighing on his release, according to Duras, just 38 kg, or 84 pounds). She nursed him back to health, but they divorced once he recovered. In 1943, when publishing her first novel, she began to use the surname Duras, after the town that her father came from, Duras, Lot-et-Garonne . In 1950, her mother returned to France from Indochina, wealthy from property investments and from
2024-490: Was not said. She was associated with the nouveau roman French literary movement , although she did not belong definitively to any one group. She was noted for her command of dialogue. In 1971, Duras signed the Manifesto of the 343 , thereby publicly announcing that she had had an abortion. According to literature and film scholars Madeleine Cottenet-Hage and Robert P. Kolker , Duras' provocative cinema between 1973 and 1983
2070-502: Was originally commissioned to make a short documentary about the atomic bomb , but spent several months confused about how to proceed because he did not want to recreate his 1956 Holocaust documentary Night and Fog . He later went to his producer and joked that the film could not be done unless Marguerite Duras was involved in writing the screenplay. The film was a co-production by companies from both France and Japan. The producers stipulated that one main character must be French and
2116-437: Was released in 1992. Duras's novel The Sea Wall was first adapted into the 1958 film This Angry Age by René Clément , and again in 2008 by Cambodian director Rithy Panh as The Sea Wall . Other major works include Moderato Cantabile (1958), which was the basis of the 1960 film Seven Days... Seven Nights ; Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein (1964); and her play India Song , which Duras herself later directed as
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