Directed by Dominique Auvray • 2003 • France
Starring Marguerite Duras, Jean-Luc Godard

Marguerite Duras was one of the most prolific, controversial, and renowned cultural figures in postwar France. Granted access to an amazing breadth of archival materials—including photographs, television interviews, extracts from Duras’s films, and home movies—Dominique Auvray crafted this deeply personal look at both the public and private lives of her friend and collaborator. Speaking about her family and youth in Indochina, her move to Paris, her work, political engagements, relationships, and social commitments, Duras goes from pain to joy, from the serious to the anecdotal, with lightning speed. As it moves along with the years, themes, and locations of her life, MARGUERITE AS SHE WAS becomes a moving portrait of a complex woman, mother, journalist, militant, friend, filmmaker, and writer.