Marguerite Duras

'Royer's study is a brilliant repositioning of Duras' cinema as a poetical, multisensory experience. Informed by recent developments in neuroscience and film theory such as embodied spectatorship and cinesthetic encounters, and the feminist criticism of Irigaray, Kristeva, Cixous and others, Royer illuminates Duras' radically innovative - and gendered - cinematic voice and syntax. A masterly analysis.'
Carol J. Murphy, University of Florida

The writer Marguerite Duras was a key figure in post-war French cinema, pioneering innovations such as the disjunction of film and image, and the primacy given to voices, silence and music. Her multisensorial approach opened up new spaces for the female experience to be expressed. Although she worked with some of the best French visual technicians and musicians of her time, critiques have often neglected the visual and sonic aesthetics of her films, and their effects on spectators. Drawing on theories of embodiment and spectatorship, this book analyses the tactility and multisensoriality of Duras' films, and how they relate to her female-centred perspective.

Michelle Royer is an associate professor and Chair of the department of French and Francophone studies at the University of Sydney.

Cover image: Watercolour splatter in rainbow colours © kjpargeter / Freepik

Cover design: www.hayesdesign.co.uk

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ISBN 978-1-4744-4054-7
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