Duras retro: July/August '24

“Cinema is being trapped in the dark with an image. Nothing more. The rest is nonsense. There is no theory that can support it.”

ICA and Another Gaze Editions @anothergaze announce a major retrospective: ‘Let Cinema Go To Its Ruin: The Cinema of Marguerite Duras’

18 Jul–25 Aug pic.twitter.com/427tgr616Q

— Institute of Contemporary Arts (@ICALondon) May 14, 2024

https://www.ica.art/films/duras

Begins tonight.

https://www.ica.art/2024-07-18

https://www.ica.art/films/la-musica

So far, watched the Long Absence. Its another Duras idea/script. There is that quietly raging tale of loss in here. Its a small town French-set Hiroshima Mon Amour without the language of that film (its co-written and def toned down). As a film it takes a while to take shape but good once it gets going.

https://www.ica.art/films/une-aussi-longue-absence

This is an OK piece on the films:

https://www.anothermag.com/design-living/15767/marguerite-duras-best-films-introduction-ica-screening

Though I think she really got good going around India Song as a director. I am looking forward to Woman of the Ganges, Culcutta Desert which are more in line with The Truck and Agathe (those are fantastic)

Don't particularly think much of films where there are characters...iirc Nathalie Granger but I need to test that out.

oh hey, missed this thread. been to see all the duras directed films so far (skipped the tv stuff). la musica was much more remarkable and emotionally devastating than I was expecting, seyrig is spinning gold in the second half. certainly the most conventional film she made, but not the by-the-numbers nouvelle vague drama I was fearing.

destroy, she said and jaune le soleil, an interesting pair to compare. the former, where politics is completely abstracted into shifting obsessions among a foursome, and the latter is tempting or playing with you to miss the forest (discourse) of for the trees (capital P politics). use of blocking and editing within a room v reminiscent to yvonne rainer's early stuff.

of the films I've seen previously, la navire night is by far my favourite so excited to catch that in the cinema.

i'm so sad im not going to be around for this

might get to see some in august near the end

Thought you would find this thread devvvine.

Plax - a lot of the films are being screened in August so

Yeah I'm going to desperately see some at the end :-(

Agathe is on YouTube BTW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0MP08XmxyI

Woman of the Ganges (Duras, 1974)

Saw it yesterday. It was really good, what Duras does is sorta looking back at Hiroshima Mon Amour with some of Marienbad (even if she was not involved in it) and puts her own spin on it, which becomes much, much stranger.

It also felt transitional to Agathe (which I felt was perfect), in that she was figuring out what she was trying to do, which is to empty things out of people, and really pare things down, and trust that her texts could carry the weight of the images, that the texts could do more of the heavy lifting.

And so onto Calcutta desert

Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta désert (1976) was wonderful. She builds onto the work in Ganges and India Song. The work is reaching a logic: more pared down; the soundtrack is basic, repetitive, immersive; the text is tighter, all narration; and the people are literally gone. Nothing left.

got to see a few of these in the end. very well put together. I got the book.

Jolly good, plax. I should get the book