Origins, Others

Numerous photographs were published in the press of Duras, the young writer, the militant leftist, or Duras with her lovers and friends. These include photos of Duras paired with Alain Robbe-Grillet and Jean-Luc Godard, Madeleine Renaud and Jeanne Moreau. All form part of the paratextual Durassian identity. The missing photograph central to the story of L'Amant is, of course, the essential photo that remains important by its very absence.

How "French" was Marguerite Duras, this "whore from the Normandy coast"?
For some working thoughts, see this digression on "nationalism."

Textual autobiographical identity can be presented by means of photographs, as used, for example, in Roland Barthes' fragmentary Roland Barthes. First titled L'Image absolue (Le Nouvel Observateur 28 septembre 1984:52), L'Amant was written to accompany a series of photographs Duras' son had assembled. According to Alain Robbe-Grillet, the commissioned text and photographs were refused by the original editor because the text was too long (*). So when it appeared without the photographs, a certain element of the autobiographical connection was lost. Robbe-Grillet pointed out the amusing result: the photograph about which Duras speaks in the text has become one in a series of missing photographs. Les Lieux de Marguerite Duras, published several years earlier, is Duras' best autobiographical effort to link her fictions and films, through photographs, with her personal life. Speaking of the missing central photograph in L'Amant (which would depict the young girl's meeting of the Chinese man on the Mekong river ferry), Leah Hewitt writes that "the status of the imaginary photo insists on autobiography's creative construction of the self-image, without, however, completely undermining the reference to a lived past" (112).

In filmed television interviews of herself and in Le Camion, Duras presents an alternative photographic self-portrait but maintains this "creative"or fictional image of her published still photographs. She tells Jérôme Beaujour: "Il y a donc deux petites filles et moi dans ma vie. Celle du Barrage. Celle de L'Amant. Et celle des photographies de famille" (La Vie matérielle 88-89). Any one of these little Marguerites is, and is not, the real Duras. Photographic images of the past, whether missing in the fiction (L'Amant) or present in an interview (Les Lieux de Marguerite Duras), confirm the difficulty of faithful recreation of the autobiographical identity.

From childhood in French Indochina to her portrait with her copain, le président de la République, Duras fills a curious role as grande dame of French letters. Behind the official portraits lie Duras' scandalous "fictions" of incest, alcohol, racism, and insanity. Her friendship with Mitterrand, if parodied, was a nationally respected institution. In the 1980s and 1990s, these compagnons de route rose to the summits of power while their vast audience was kept guessing at the true nature of the revelations of their past histories.

F.M.
1916-1996

Two Frogs
© 1996
Eclectic Iconoclast

A life-time companion different than Yann Andréa, François Mitterrand's career parallels that of Duras, contemporary masters in powerful manipulation of the mediated autobiography. The timely juxtaposition of Mitterrand and Duras' deaths -- generating numerous reprints of complicitous and official photographs of them together -- brought a theatrical, internationally mediated conclusion to their relationship: she survived Mitterrand by less than two months.

Even in her final years, Duras' presence on television and in the printed press continued almost unabatedly. Filmed interviews with Bernard Rapp and Benoît Jacquot presented final versions of her visage -- and by then the voix -- dévastés; her mechanical voice-box simply became another part of the persona the author continued to write about, speak of, and present to a public. From the time of her death, the Internet has proven to be a mediated space where Duras has gained in presence. On March 4, Carole Netter posted Duras' 1957 short-story, "Les Fleurs de l'Algérien," as an hommage to Duras at the ClicNet site. And, of course, the present Dur@s conference was begun as a memorial tribute to Duras the writer. It remains to be seen to what extent the author's "autobiographical" identity will continue to change through such figurations in mass-media. . . .

"Duras: La Pute de la côte normande"
© 1996-97 Thomas C. Spear
All Rights Reserved.

* Note: He told me this in an interview in October 1991. Since he spoke in French, I had permission to quote anything I wanted from the interview since he could not possibly have said it (in English)! Robbe-Grillet works and writes for les Éditions de Minuit. (Return to text)