The story's characters:
YANN LEMÉE, KNOWN AS YANN ANDRÉA;
MICHÈLE MANCEAUX, WRITER, JOURNALIST, COLUMNIST IN MARIE CLAIRE;
MARGUERITE DURAS, FAMOUS DIRECTOR AND FILMMAKER
Capri, it's over
To think it was the town of my first love
Capri, it's over
I don't think I'll go back one day
We will never go again
Where you told me ''I love you"
We will never go again
Like previous years
Sometimes I would like
To tell you "Let's start again"
But I loose heart
Knowing you'll say no
Capri, it's over
To think it was the town of my first love
Capri, it's over
I don't think I'll go back one day
Capri, it's over
To think it was the town of my first love
Capri, it's over
I don't think I'll go back one day
I WANT TO TALK ABOUT DURAS
We'll do the interview you asked for.
You and Marguerite, who I saw downstairs.
-She looks well. -You saw her?
She wanted to bring up coffee. I declined:.
"I've had my coffee. Thanks, Marguerite."
-I hope she doesn't come up. -No...
We'll do the interview you asked me for.
You and Marguerite, who I saw downstairs.
-She looks well. -Ah, you saw her?
December 2
1982.
-I want to talk about Duras. -Ok.
And yet it is so enormous,
So crazy...
I don't know how to start.
How to tackle the character, Duras.
Maybe start with your fascination?
Yes.
Maybe I could say how I met her?
Ok.
It was several years ago.
I was... I don't know... 22.
In the place I was, there was "The Little Horses of Tarquinia".
It belonged to a girl who lived there.
And I read it.
And this book immediately...
enthralled me.
3 days later, I was drinking a Bitter Campari in a café.
It was in Caen, so Bitter Campari wasn't very popular.
Then, I read everything else.
So much so that I only read her books.
I was studying philosophy.
I gave up everything, other than her books.
Even the author felt so present to me.
It's funny, because I didn't know her at all.
Nobody - not a friend or teacher - had told me I should read Duras.
That's just how it was.
I picked up the book and it knocked me out.
I'm nearly 30.
I was 21, 22 then.
So, it's been 7 or 8 years.
What's extraordinary is that it's never stopped.
It's never stopped.
On the contrary, I gradually created a vacuum of reading around me
because it seemed to me...
that's all there is.
Those texts.
I could only read a few pages, as it was so overwhelming.
And I didn't want to get to know her.
So, I was a student in Caen.
In Normandy.
Then came "India Song". I saw it 10 times.
So, the event for me was that Duras was coming to Caen.
I was there.
I attended the debate. I couldn't speak, I was in a panic.
There was a Q&A at the end,
so I ended up asking a question.
What was it?
It wasn't a question actually.
I wanted to tell her
that I didn't understand the final shot of "India Song".
...the final shot of the map.
And all of a sudden, I said:
"Now I see. It's the same way of filming the remains of Anne-Marie Stretter,
when the camera moves over the wig, the jewelry, the dress.
It's the same way of filming the map of Asia."
She said: "Yes, you're right."
I was delighted.
But very hung up.
I wanted to buy her flowers.
I was told: "No.
It's not done. Don't be a groupie. It's Duras, after all!
Don't do that."
So I didn't.
But I wanted to be a bit demonstrative, you know?
In my pocket, I had a copy of "Destroy, She said".
"Destroy, She Said"...
After the debate, when everyone had gone and she was leaving,
I asked her to sign the book.
She signed it.
I asked if I could write to her at her publisher's.
She said: "No, write to me at home: 5 Rue Saint Benoît."
I was amazed that she gave me her address.
Try to go into every detail in your memory.
The physical impression she made on you, things like that.
-Am I intervening too much? -No.
Tell me if I am.
The physical impression...
All of a sudden, when the lights went up,
she came out with the interviewer.
I thought she wrote that.
I spent my days with her works.
She had a leather vest, a check skirt,
rings and bracelets.
I noticed the bracelets and rings.
it's her.
And that voice...
I discovered that voice.
As soon as she started speaking, there was total silence.
They said: "Marguerite Duras is here."
She said: "Yes, I'm here.
I'm Marguerite Duras, I made this film. I await your questions.
If there aren't any, I'll go. I don't care."
Imagine a 5 - minute silence.
And I felt,
Maybe retroactively, that she knew.
I felt she'd seen me.
And at the café, afterwards?
What bothered me, I now know, was the others.
There were 10 other people, I wanted to have her to myself.
To yourself.
After that, of course, I wrote to her very often.
The first letter was very clumsy, I think.
"I love you so much, I'd like to meet you.
But I don't know if I should. I don't want to spoil things."
She replied a year later to the day:
"I reread your letter. I cannot answer it. It's your decision.
It's not up to me to say if you should see me."
She said: "I can't answer that request."
So, I realized there was no point seeing her.
I really wanted to, but I knew there was no point.
I wrote a lot, as I reread her texts.
For her. The letters were often simple.
What kept coming back was:
"I love you."
I took excerpts from her books and sent them to her.
She never replied. I didn't expect a reply.
-Can I ask you a question? -Yes.
I never know if I should ask you questions or not.
Do you feel like talking about your love life at the time?
I mean, did you share this love for her with others,
with people you could love physically or not?
Yes, I shared this passion I had for her with the girl I was living with.
I remember that evenings ended, drinking whisky and reading Duras.
This girl called Bénédicte did a Master's on Duras later.
The people I saw at the time were all into Duras.
They liked Duras, but they also liked something else.
-You loved Bénédicte, too? -Ah, yes.
The love I had for that girl was...
experienced over time.
You don't think it's going to end, but
experienced over time. That's the difference.
My relationship with Duras, with her texts, with her,
was total love.
It was... eternity.
And that completely belonged to me.
Do you want to try to say now, or maybe later,
what appealed to you most deeply, outside the texts?
What affected you most in her writings?
I never analyzed what affected... what affects me.
It's in the present tense.
I think it's the dimension of time...
and that of death.
Not passion?
Yes passion, but...
Yes, passion, but passion which is struck by death...
struck by lightning.
I immediately said to myself...
"That is truth.
The truth of passion, the truth of love
is death.
Anne-Marie Stretter's love for...
What's his name?
That love which destroys everything...
destroys someone, too.
Nothing can exist, love can't exist
without someone's destruction, without death.
What you're saying is very important. Do you realize that?
The vision I had of "India Song", where people are...
funeral celebrations, I don't know how to put it...
Dead people...
I felt it was completely that,
completely right, that's what life is...
but dead life.
Life recreated.
-The French Vice-Consul from Lahore. -Yes.
Sent to Calcutta in disgrace.
He's come back to the grounds?
Yes.
He comes every night.
This somewhat dead, yet completely passionate world,
that I see struck by lightning...
corresponded in me to that...
A total failure.
A failure.
Well, I was talking about the point you may see her.
So...
Maybe it's too soon, I don't know...
Yes...
I wrote very often.
Many letters I never sent.
Never any answer.
And one day, I received a letter.
She said: "I've been sick."
It must have been in February or March 1980.
She said:
"I think about you a lot.
Your letters are wonderful..."
Go on, you have to say what's in your heart.
Yes...
Don't be afraid what you think is naive or overly sensitive.
Get it out.
I was overwhelmed by that letter.
In a way, I realized I was part of her life.
I had that confirmed later,
she kept all my letters in a drawer.
While I thought I was the only one experiencing this passion,
suddenly I realized with this letter received 6 years later,
that this passion was reciprocal.
She too, in a way, shared this passion.
So, I wrote her back, beside myself...
beside myself to get a letter like that.
I knew she was in Trouville. One day, I phoned.
She gave you her number?
No, she didn't give me her number or anything.
I found her number quite simply.
She always says her number is unlisted.
I found out Duras isn't her real name. That really affected me.
Go on.
Well, for me, Duras was Duras.
She couldn't be called anything else.
A friend said: "Her name isn't Duras. It's a pen name. Her name is Donnadieu."
What a catastrophe!
Her name was real to me, so real.
Suddenly, I discovered it was fake.
It was fiction because she had a pseudonym.
I just flipped.
Reality, fiction...
I wanted to forget all that.
But thanks to that, I found her number.
I called, someone answered: "No, she is in the countryside."
I lied when they said: "Do you have the number?"
"Of course, but not on me. Can you give it to me?"
That's how I got her other number.
And I called her here.
In Neauphle.
I immediately started to tremble.
I said: "It's Yann."
She said: "Oh, my!" I mean, she was very...
She started talking a lot about all kinds.
My phone bill was astronomical!
I had no money back then.
That's how I first spoke to her on the phone.
You don't remember what she said to you?
I do.
"You write me such fantastic letters."
It was the summer of 1980 when she was writing for Libération.
I said it was very good. I didn't know what to say as I was overwhelmed
to hear her voice on her phone.
What struck me is that she laughed.
I couldn't imagine Duras laughing.
And all of a sudden, she laughed.
I don't know what about.
But I said to myself: "She's 18 years old."
It was pretty moving.
We talked and she said:
"I'm going back
to Trouville. Call me."
At the end of the month, I phoned.
She said: "Come see me in Trouville."
It was complicated, I rang her once,
she said: "No, I'm working. I'm scared to see you,
to see new people. I don't know if we should see each other.
Maybe it's not worth it."
I said: "Yes, indeed, maybe it's not worth it, but I'm here."
... I'm here.
She said: "Call me in 2 hours' time." So, I called her back.
She said: "Come, but bring a bottle of wine."
So, I brought a bottle of wine to Les Roches Noires, the hotel.
When I arrived, she kissed me.
Very tenderly.
And I immediately felt something.
I didn't think she'd kiss me.
But it was if she'd known me for 6 years.
I'd been writing to her for 6 or 7 years.
It was like a friend turning up. Maybe not a friend...
And we talked and talked about her books.
And I stayed.
I think you need to say more.
Because you say "like a friend".
-No. -I don't know, but...
You need to go further.
If I have to come out with it...
What I can say is that someone whose name I saw,,
someone who was a passion to me...
I saw her living.
And I said to myself:
"She's not only fantastic in her books,
she's fantastic, period.
She's fantastic."
Suddenly, there was this shift from the fiction in my head
to her, see?
And in the same way, I was carried away, enchanted
by her texts, captivated...
I didn't let go for years.
Similarly, I was captivated by her.
I left my job, my apartment.
And I stayed.
And the relationship I had with her texts, this relationship
of the domination she had over me, regarding her texts,
her imagination she imposed on me...
It immediately came just like that.
I was in a relationship of fascination, admiration...
and also of...
of domination.
You mean submission?
Yes, submission.
Will you say more... Would you have had this emotion...
Did the fact that she was a woman play a part?
That's hard to say.
It's up to you to say more or not.
It's your call.
I don't like the word, "submission". It's more...
acceptance.
Accepting that she...
So, about this initial encounter...
Yes.
We had a drink.
We talked for quite a long time.
I said to her:
"I don't have a hotel."
"They're all full in summer in Trouville."
She said: "You can stay here if you like.
My son's room is free."
Just like that, see?
So, I said yes and I stayed there.
All of a sudden, over the following days,
maybe a week later,
our relationship became very tender,
very affectionate, very loving in a way.
I always had this idea that she was a woman,
but mediated by her writing.
I wouldn't have gone up to her if I hadn't read her books.
That's me. I don't just go up to women.
It's due to my homosexuality...
There has to be a fictional aspect...
mediatized so that the woman is approachable.
I mean, it's not...
that she was approachable, it's that she approached me.
She fell in love with me almost immediately.
And knowing that, sensing that
meant that I fell in love with her.
I don't think we slept together right away.
For 2 weeks, I kissed her on her mouth.
We slept in separate bedrooms.
The relationship she wanted with me was a female relationship.
I mean, a woman who is in love with a guy and wants to sleep with him.
It really...
stunned me.
First, as I'm mainly homosexual.
I've been with women, but...
I'm homosexual, so I have problems with women
in that I'd never approach a woman.
it has to come from a woman.
Secondly, what overturned everything,
everything got mixed up, is the fiction.
Duras and all of a sudden, the woman.
She imposed herself, asked me to change the register completely.
"I'm not just a writer - I'm also a woman."
It was very overwhelming
to conduct the fictional relationship I had with her
with a real relationship.
A physical relationship.
She was in love with me, so I was with her.
In love...
When she asked you to truly consider her as a woman, what happened for you?
I was scared.
You have to develop that idea.
Were you scared of death because it was passionate?
Were you scared you wouldn't be up to it?
I'm always scared I won't be up to it with women.
And with Marguerite, it was more than that.
I felt words raining down on me.
I was going to be carried away by her.
As I have suicidal tendencies, I felt this movement.
This woman would carry me off somewhere.
In those moments, did you...
She plays a double role with me. It's a caricature to say that,
A man's role. She did the talking, suggested everything, spoke for me.
She gave the orders. She was the master.
And she wasn't satisfied for being the master who decided for me...
or for everyone else.
Who created... created me.
One day, she said:
"I'll uncreate you to create you."
Originally, it was that.
When I met Marguerite, I was physically hung up.
I discovered a woman who was free with her body and said:
"I want to fuck. Fuck me."
I became even more hung up because her body demanded pleasure.
That sexual freedom, in the broadest sense,
she passed it on to me.
She put me in this guy's role, saying: "Yes, you're a guy."
Isn't that a fantastic recognition?
Yes, absolutely. "You are not a fag - you're a guy."
What did you say? "Of course..."
I said yes. I did...
What I experienced with Marguerite was huge.
For the first time, a woman gave herself to me,
saying: "I'm here, do with me what you will."
It's very pleasurable to possess...
to be able to dominate someone completely.
That's her.
And it was the first time.
There was no question of age.
It was such an encounter with a woman.
And I had this huge feeling of being a man...
I don't think I'd ever made love before I met her.
I'd say I came along naively.
I'd go so far as to say I was an innocent virgin.
I didn't know what a real orgasm was,
having a body you could do what you want with.
It was the first time I felt like that.
Initially... I mean, maybe all the time,
it was a kind of fear or terror to meet a woman...
Women are scary.
Maybe it's because I'm homosexual, but I don't think so.
I think all men feel this fear.
Maybe more by homosexuals because they feel fear more,
but even with straights whose fear is hidden and denied, it's still there.
There's this fear...
What's happening to me? No, I don't want to...
And doing it, making love...
bringing someone who likes it to orgasm, to react...
It's incredible the first time. It was the first time for me.
It happened in the first month. It was unbelievable.
All I told you went through my head.
All the thoughts I had about Duras, then suddenly, I met Duras.
A woman who reveals to me
passion and sexuality.
It's all mixed up in my head. When I said terror,
I didn't want to leave my imagination,
I didn't want to enter the reality of her passion.
-Do you see? -Yes.
I realized that passion wasn't reality.
It's as powerful, as fictional as books. They overlap, see?
So it lasted all summer?
No, it lasted... I don't know.
I didn't know what was happening.
He was a very young man.
He must be the age you were that day on the beach.
23, I seem to remember.
The sea seems to be sleeping.
There is no wind.
There's no one.
The sea is smooth as in winter.
I can still see you out there.
You used to seek out the waves, I would cry out for fear.
And you wouldn't hear.
And I would cry.
I used to think I knew everything.
Everything.
Yes.
I'd foreseen everything.
Everything.
Everything that might happen between you... and me.
Yes.
I thought I had considered everything.
Everything.
The pain, no.
That's never possible.
We're getting to...
So that you can define yourself, I expect...
to the moment, the first moment, you couldn't stand it anymore.
Because you couldn't, at times.
We'd been living in Trouville
for 2 or 3 months, till November. Just the two of us.
It was wonderful. I didn't know what was happening to me.
I wasn't thinking about anything. I was...
totally in her...
in the passion of her. It was...
It was crazy.
I'd have said yes to anything she asked of me.
Hang on.
I think it was sheer happiness.
I felt this love she had... she has.
It's silly to talk in the past.
I was going to say that.
It's because I always tell it in the past tense.
Maybe we should add the fact that you tell it in the past tense.
But it's still in the present.
You should leave that in.
Maybe you can say more about what you brought to this relationship...
which formed it and made it novelistic material.
What was your part in all that?
Did you give the cues? What did you do?
What was your part in the seduction?
Is it...
Is it recording?
Yes.
I don't know what part I played in the seduction.
Do you feel that you...
that she invented your character,
or that you really existed?
-In a way, you existed, of course. -Yes.
You existed.
Yes, I existed, but at the same time,
I felt projected into her imagination.
I saw myself as the object of that passion.
She gave me things, dressed me in her waistcoats, pullovers, shirts.
She changed my perfume. She hated me seeing my friends.
Initially, I accepted all that. I was so happy...
I can't call it anything else. It was so fulfilling.
I immediately took part in what she was writing.
I was integrated at once.
I immediately typed up her texts.
There was no break between being together on a daily basis,
going on walks, making love, and her writing.
It was immediately totally transparent.
She offered herself to me, saying: "This is how I am."
"And this is how I write."
"And this is how I write and you accept everything."
And I accepted everything.
The writing, the way she was, the way she was naked,
the way she ate...
walked, looked... she taught me everything in those 2 months.
The way she saw things...
people, the way she wrote, her tastes, how she ate.
"I'm all yours, but you must take it all."
I don't think it's a caricature. "You must take it all."
And I did try to take it all.
To take part in everything,
but after a while, it became kind of crazy.
For instance, if I want to wear this shirt today, why shouldn't I?
Later, I resisted on a daily basis, but...
I realized it was impossible, it was, as she says: "Take it or leave it."
Say: "Suddenly it bothers me to speak in the past."
Yes, it bothers me to speak in the past
because I'm still living in the first few months.
I'm still in that same passion,
although I resist, because I sometimes think it's getting too much.
I may feel like that for an hour a day
or for an evening with her, even now.
It's fantastic that it still goes on.
But we've been talking for an hour and I suddenly feel that...
I'm betraying her.
She put that in my head.
Feeling like I'm guilty all the time.
If I talk to anyone else or I'm away for too long, I'm guilty.
Speaking to you now, suddenly I think...
"Will she like this?
Will she be pleased? Is it good?"
Suddenly, I need her approval when it's something I want to do,
but I'm so caught up in this...
What time is it?
6.15 PM.
You said you had to go down at 6.15.
Isn't that incredible?
Well, there we are.
We should stop there.. It's extraordinary!
Crazy!
Well, that...
should be kept.
I'll stop it.
It was in Caen, so Bitter Campari wasn't very popular.
... but dead life. Life recreated.
A total failure.
A failure...
Because you say, "like a friend".
No.
"I want to fuck. Fuck me."
I became...
I don't think I'd ever made love before I met her.
-How are you? -Ok?
I'll put your tea there.
Thanks.
I thought about "Agatha" all night. I need to talk about it.
Ok.
December 3, 1982.
I must add that...
a few months after we met, in March the next year, so 6 months later,
Marguerite put me in a film.
She stuck me in the frame.
I think that's important, too.
Important for your love?
She said: "I'll uncreate you to create you."
That was very important, too.
She taught me to read lines,
detach the words, try to talk like her.
And to walk in films.
But not just in films.
This domination even concerned the body.
Look more.
Even longer.
No!
I'll tell you when to go.
Look elsewhere. Forget about the camera.
More... more.
No, do it very naturally. Look really at it.
Look at the sea.
Don't ever pretend.
Never! Not even for a second.
Go to the window.
That's it, start your real walk.
The camera bothers you. Look at it again now.
That's it.
Good. That's beautiful. Come to me.
No! Only do what I tell you.
Don't look at the sea again.
No! Look at me.
You are not looking at me, you're thinking of your walk.
Unbelievable!
Look at me and don't think of your walk.
Walk properly or I'll put you in a chair.
Or I'll film you in a chair.
I was her lover, not an actor.
She couldn't stand me having homosexual desires.
She asked if I was homosexual. I said yes.
And nothing stopped us
falling in love with each other.
Nothing was stopped by it.
But she saw that if she let that gap open,
if she didn't seal it off,
these external homosexual desires she couldn't control,
she couldn't stand it.
She said: "Pederasty is nothing" and "You are not homosexual"
and "I'm all you desire".
She immediately saw she had to be strict about that.
I see it as an amorous undertaking, because it's unbearable
when your lover has other desires.
But I also see something more general in how she functions.
She's asking me to give up all my other desires...
Other than?
Other than my desire for her and her desire for me.
I take the most obvious case of homosexuality.
but it came out every day in more incidental things.
One day, if I wanted beef, and she wanted tomato soup,
the beef didn't exist.
It's a false desire. Mine is the real desire.
Hers?
Yes, hers, sorry.
Because...
you give in on the leeks, on the homosexuality,
on the way you dress, walk, your perfume, the friends you see.
what you should say...
After a while, you say: "I no longer exist.
What is me?"
And her answer is:
"You are nothing, you don't exist."
"What do you mean, I don't exist?"
"No, you don't exist.
You only exist through me."
Initially, I react: "If I want, leeks, I don't need your approval.
If I'm homosexual, I exist."
Initially, I react like that to defend myself.
And what happens... What's fascinating about all that...
That's where we go back to her hold over me is that I give in.
"It's true that leeks are nothing, that homosexuality doesn't exist.
It's true that you're right."
And I give in.
It even went further:
"You don't exist. You do because I make you exist."
It's not completely contradictory, because she loves me, it should be enough.
I wait
for her to finish speaking, eating, writing...
I have to be available,
which means she puts me in a female role.
If I say I'll do the shopping and choose dinner,
even if she accepts, whatever I do is bad.
And indeed, I fail. It's such a cliché.
Mind you, I didn't have much security, much...
self-confidence.
But now...
I've completely lost it.
In exchange for...
a super guarantee
which is her, since she speaks the truth.
She says: "That's what's true.
No need to contest, make distinctions, prevaricate, etc.
What I say is true.
You, on the other hand, can only lie.
And you lie all the time."
The worst thing is, you can't prove you're not lying.
With Marguerite, it's clear-cut. I'm always the one who must prove
that I love her, that I'm not lying.
She doesn't have to prove anything.
Because she has language and she took away the language I had.
That's part of this whole process
I'd call passionate and...
How can I put it? ... of total domination from A to Z.
But if you stand it you find desire in it?
I talk about all that to Marguerite,
but she can't stand it.
She takes it as an attack.
The fundamental thing she gives me is that she is,
to me, truth, in a way.
I think that's it.
That's reassuring. She gives me everything:
language, love, writing...
It's become a drug. I can't do without it.
When we go somewhere, she is in the foreground,
I'm in the background.
And that's very comfortable.
I don't need to talk.
Sometimes people are kind enough to smile at me, to talk to me,
but it's always on her terms.
Do you suffer from that?
I mean two things by that. It's very comfortable, but...
it's not just that.
It no doubt fills a failing in me, which is that...
I have no anchor point...
"Am I gay? Am I straight?"
I must be faithful to what she intends to do with me.
I went along with that.
And I still do.
But I see it's a foregone failure.
I'll never have the perfect image she wants to have of me.
Sometimes I have these breakdowns when I say to myself...
"She'll never succeed."
And I say to myself
that this attempt is admirable.
It's completely...
excessive, completely crazy.
And at the same time, I think it's maybe not worth it either.
Sometimes you left.
You walked out, saying it was no longer possible.
She threw me out. Well, it was both.
What happened then?
I ran away.
The first time, it was very serious, because there was a suicide attempt.
If you bring that up, you have to say a lot more.
Self-defeating behavior which meant that,
to put it simply, I swallowed pills.
It's more than that.
Why want to die?
I could have gone to see friends,
had a normal attitude of recovery, but I didn't think of that.
It was that without her, nothing exists anymore.
So, I could do nothing but die.
But you do it once - you don't keep committing suicide!
There was this feeling
that I couldn't be what she wanted me to be.
When I couldn't stand it anymore, I left.
But I was just so unhappy.
As soon as I got on the train,
I was 10 times more anxious than when I was with her.
And at once, the only thing
I could think of was to phone her.
And I went back.
I knew the situation couldn't change.
I want to talk about that. I haven't told anyone for 2 years.
I know it want change anything.
I'm opposite someone who exists completely.
If anyone exists...
it's Marguerite.
10 times more than anyone else!
Faced with this complete existence, there's non-existence, nothingness.
To cushion this non-existence, to recover something,
I talk about all that.
It's got so I can only read books she's recommended.
No point seeing a film since "India Song" exists.
As soon as I say I'm going to see a film
I destroy something, this block...
I destroy the block of love.
It's seen as a betrayal. Talking about her to someone
is seen as a betrayal, or at least as suspicious.
I like being in that situation, let's be honest.
Why did I pick Yann Lemée?
To portray Agatha's man.
If I hadn't met this...
How can I put it? ... wanderer...
This man in the grip of modern wandering
who came and stayed at my place, who left his job and his apartment,
his friends,
I probably wouldn't have written "Agatha".
It's funny to see someone turn up at your place.
He's prepared to give up everything: his job...
his home...
What can you get him to do...
other than the role of the lover
of Agatha?
Nobody ever loved me like that.
I'm sure of that.
I'm also sure nobody will ever love me like that.
Such attention that...
she wanted me no longer to exist, so great was her love.
Marguerite's intelligence is brilliant
as it's not deliberate. You know what she's like.
She doesn't know what she's doing. She regrets it.
Where was I?
When I talk of her love for me,
I feel like I'm talking about my love for her, no?
No, because you don't talk about your intentions,
about wanting to take care of her.
For example...
When I get up in the morning...
my first thought is her... It's for her.
How was her night? Is she still alive? How is she? That kind of thing.
And I must say it's...
I have to say that.
She's so adorable, so...
so full of love that...
I can't help but love her.
And I can't help but desire her,
want to kiss her.
And I can't help but want to leave her.
To kill her.
She invites this violence, to be hit...
She provokes me so much, and God knows I'm not violent.
I'm led to behave violently with her.
But just as she possesses the language, the love,
she makes me be in love.
This physical attachment...
wanting to kiss her, make love to her...
The scenes are dreadful.
What keeps coming back, which means that it lasts
is that I say: "I'm sick of it."
It's impossible, terrifying, monstrous, inhuman.
You can't treat someone like that.
And it comes back in waves.
I forgive her everything. A kind of immense forgiveness...
I can't blame her.
And our love lasts...
I'll always love her, no matter what.
For example, I can't imagine her dying.
Maybe it's an imaginary world, but I can't.
And I can't see myself
after her.
Similarly, I can't see myself before.
I feel like I've lived with her for centuries, for ever.
Maybe my life started then.
I believe that, my life started then.
Similarly, I can't envisage the end.
So, I say that in the form of...
of immortality,
of eternity.
But what's tragic is,
I know it'll end, just thinking of practicalities.
For example, our age difference.
I'll ask the question I wanted to ask you earlier.
How do you feel concerned by "The Malady of death"?
The proposal...
in the text, the proposal made to the man to love...
is exactly what Marguerite made to me.
Did you feel afflicted by this malady?
Yes.
Do you think it's a homosexual malady, too?
Yes, I think...
Very early on, before I met her, when I frequented homosexuals, I thought
that I was inside and outside.
And I had... I've always had...
a kind of lucidity about the vanity of all that.
I'd go further, I don't think you should stop at homosexuality.
It's not the cause of everything.
The problem was this incredible lack
from not loving...
not getting outside oneself,
not feeling love.
That's what I experience with Marguerite, this proposal.
"You've never loved a woman?"
She's speaking.
"No, never."
"You've never desired a woman?"
"No,
Never."
"Not once?
Not for a moment?"
"No, never."
"Never? Ever?"
"Never.
Ever."
"What about looking at a woman?
What about looking at a woman? You've never looked at a woman?"
"No.
Never."
"What do you look at?"
"All the rest."
The men in "Malady" are homosexuals.
And...
most people don't see that.
It's extraordinary, but they don't.
Did she persuade you it was a malady or did you feel it was one?
No, I completely felt it was...
I wouldn't say a malady, because the medical term is shocking.
I'd say it's a lack.
A lack of loving.
I mean...
having to possess, to belong to someone.
I know that's my failing.
I became homosexual for a reason.
My crazy failing is having the feeling...
of not belonging.
Feeling almost not alive.
Feeling...
incapable of anything.
Of doing anything.
Feeling a massive failure.
And ultimately, having no identity, in a way.
And that's homosexuality, to a certain extent.
When it's experienced like I did.
You make it up through the group, through the codes.
There are networks, like everywhere.
You take comfort in all speaking the same way,
dressing the same, liking the same thing.
I don't like people saying: "Those homosexuals"...
I speak for myself.
I don't claim it's necessarily absolute misfortune...
Do you dare tell her that?
Huh?
You dare tell her that?
What?
That it's not misfortune, when she thinks it is?
Yes, I do, but...
It's impossible for her.
She can't hear it.
So, you don't entirely agree with this text?
Yew, I do.
I agree, as far as I'm concerned.
But it's what you think?
It's what I think.
For her, it's death.
Homosexuality is absolute death.
Yes, but I think that as far as I'm concerned.
I mean, I don't think it's true for all homosexuals.
But I think it's true for me.
But it shouldn't be turned into a category.
Which she does.
Yes, but that's how she works.
I don't think all homosexuals are struck by death.
Did you see the woman?
She says homosexuals don't see her.
Yes, indeed.
That's what I told you.
I discovered what a woman's body is,
what a woman's desire is.
A desire for a woman, a woman's desire for a man.
It goes both ways.
Is one preferable to the other?
Yes, well, I wouldn't use that word.
It's completely different.
Better for you?
Yes. Well, it's not more satisfying...
It's another continent.
Another relationship.
Is it such that you no longer like men?
I don't think I like men.
You like sleeping with men?
Hang on.
I'm not talking about love. I'm talking about sexuality.
I'll make a clear distinction.
It doesn't stop me having homosexual desires. I told Marguerite.
She can't stand it, but I don't see what I can do about it.
As for loving a man, no.
What attracts you to men?
What attracts me is...
men's bodies, for example.
Maybe it's off topic, I don't know...
We can talk about it. Why not?
Well, I think it's...
not in the text.
No, but...
I don't know if you want to record it or not.
I'm a bit scared...
Do you want to?
Yes.
Maybe it's a bit simplistic, but I think that...
a homosexual relationship is a mirror.
That's exactly it.
Yes, but it's death.
Yes, it's death, but...
It's not bad, in a way.
There's also these clandestine, nighttime hookups,
the bodies you can barely see, the ephemeral aspect.
You met a guy for an hour or two, it's nothing.
Could you say more about death in your passion for Marguerite?
Do you talk about it a lot?
Does one kill the other?
Do you have this murderous impulse?
Yes...
Well, I discovered this impulse,
the violence of killing someone for the first time
for her. It's her.
Marguerite provokes this violence.
It's the first time...
I feel that.
Really, in my whole life.
It's never been like that with guys.
That wasn't at stake.
So, if this violence is triggered, I think it's between man and woman.
My relationship with Marguerite is heterosexual,
but there are homosexual aspects to it, in a way.
The way she talks to me in the feminine.
Yes, she talks to me in the feminine.
Do you like it?
Yes... It annoys me after a while. I don't see myself like that.
That's where my homosexual side comes into play with Marguerite.
I think like I have a link that is more than loving with Marguerite.
And this link is sealed
and will continue till death.
She writes it, so she immortalizes it, in a way.
It's a way of making me die, too.
When I saw "The Atlantic Man",
I felt hysterical, I was trembling,
crying when I woke up,
in tears at the idea of seeing myself on the screen,
seeing myself dead, I realized later.
She made me die
by filming me. That's extraordinary.
Her love, the object of her passion, in a static shot...
I don't move, I'm almost always in a chair.
She made him die - made me die!
And as she made me die, she created an image of me
as an immortality of me that escapes me.
Because I didn't recognize myself on the screen, it wasn't me.
Suddenly, I had a jolt. I fought with her.
I said no. I said: "You call me a fag. Yes, I'm a fag.
So what? What do you say?"
And she said:
"It's absolutely horrible.
But I adore you."
It's different now.
I'm a homosexual,
I have desires for guys, and it's easier.
This homosexual aspect must fascinate her.
Yesterday she said to me:
"You should talk about all that." The way I am. "Be specific."
But I need to talk about it beforehand, to get to it.
I need to talk to you, to talk.
Did she say: "Talk about me because you let me talk?"
Of course I want to talk about her.
But I want to say other things, too.
Could you talk about her suffering?
The suffering in passion?
I think that's her suffering.
Life all the way.
Experiencing everything, making love,
drinking herself into a stupor all night,
eating till it kills her...
A kind of excess that is suffering.
We don't love each other enough.
It's never beautiful enough, never great enough.
The keyword is "more, more".
What surprises me is that she wrote "The Rapture of Lol V. Stein",
she understands the delusion of passion, failure, mortality...
yet she lives like a 15-year-old:
"We'll love one another for ever.
I'll quit everything. I'll see nobody but you.
I'm completely there."
She totally believes it.
As if she were 15.
I feel like I'm 80, completely blasé.
She goes for it, she doesn't care, she has no doubts.
Every day, I think she'll die.
She plays tricks like that:
''I'm dying, I'm sick."
The next day, she runs around the house.
When she gets up, she says:
"Let's make beef stew."
And... "I adore you, let's make love."
A kind of fundamental innocence.
The great thing about her is that she forgets.
She forgets her age, past lovers, friends...
There's just me.
I'm rather reticent, she's the opposite, she exposes herself completely.
She's totally present.
She says: "I have a body, I exist, I'm hungry, thirsty."
There are no limits. That's a pretty close definition of her.
She won't just be like that, she wants it to be shared,
she has a sense of others.
Maybe I love her less than her, me. I'm always one step behind.
As she's always everything better than everyone else, and me...
In passion, cooking, writing, her way of looking at things and people...
You always feel a bit behind.
She wants to raise me up to that intensity.
She can see that I can't do it.
I think that hurts a lot.
It hurts her a lot.
It's over.
-Is it the end? -Yes.
Yann, do you have an envelope?
Yes, I'll get you one.
How's that? It's not very big.
Yes, it's a bit small.
You can find a better one.
Here...
I'd like you to keep them for now.
I'll get them another time.
-Are you sure? -Yeah.
Ok...
Well, I'll be going.
Yann never got his tapes.
When Michèle Manceaux died, her partner gave them to a friend.
Then, when Yann died, they were given to his sister Pascale Lemée,
who transcribed their contents, word by word.
These were the interviews you've just seen.
I WANT TO TALK ABOUT DURAS