DURAS, Marguerite
Six Films

In the late 1970s, Marguerite Duras embarked on an experimental journey to expand the boundaries of writing and film. For Duras, writing need not be text on a page nor cinema merely images on a screen. Six Films [Le navire Night — Césarée — Les mains négatives — Aurélia Steiner — Aurélia Steiner —Aurélia Steiner] is the result of her efforts to redefine the two arts in order to create a hybrid work. Taking narration, voiceovers, and dialogue from six of her films, Duras re-envisions them as extended prose poems and monologues, tangling with self-identity, personal relationships, colonialism, and expression as the celluoid images recede and the text becomes the film itself. Now available for the first time in English, Six Films is a document of an artist at the apex of her creative prowess.

Translated from the French by Olivia Baes & Emma Ramadan.

[publishers’ note]

Published by Inpatient Press / Mercurial Editions, 2025
Literature