Nuit noire, Calcutta, a film commissioned by the pharmaceutical industry and hijacked by Marin Karmitz, unfolds as an intense, nocturnal meandering, with a screenplay by Marguerite Duras. Marin Karmitz rapidly abandons the informative intent of the project, adopting a much freer narrative. Although the film’s purpose is to promote a drug claiming to cure alcoholism, it transforms into a black-and-white mirage, starring Maurice Garrel as a drunken writer, a vice-consul in Calcutta, who is rendered creatively impotent.
Who better than Duras to describe the devastating effects of inebriation on the writing process? Her solemn style and haunting language accompany the shipwreck of the cursed writer staring at a blank page. Beyond a mere meta movie, the short film accurately and elegantly depicts the anguish of the author, who is already no more.

Cannelle Anglade, “Troicouleurs”, 4 March 2022

Initially, it was a project commissioned by a pharmaceutical laboratory, which was launching a drug purported to cure alcoholism. After an attempt at a documentary, which I abandoned, I thought of Marguerite Duras, knowing she had been plagued by alcohol-related problems. As she had recently come out of rehab, she wanted to express it, and penned a first version of Nuit noire, Calcutta.

Marin Karmitz

After Sept jours ailleurs and Camarades, two dramas infused with the protest spirit of the era (filmed in 1967 and 1969 respectively), Marin Karmitz, then a proletarian leftwing activist, developed a strategy for his third feature film that would overturn the rules of cinematographic creation. The scenario, which recounts a wildcat strike in a textile factory, is based on the testimonies of dozens of female workers. On the set, the actresses originally cast were quickly replaced by real workers. Using the term “intervention cinema” is a twoway street: the artist gets involved in the political field, while the workers get involved in making the film by giving their opinion on a scene or improvising the dialogue. This original method proves highly effective on the screen, generating a formidable impression of vitality. Coup pour coup presents the alienating daily life of the factory, with the racket of the machines, the intimidation of the supervisors and the infernal pace. The rebellion that ensues involves the occupation of the factory and the kidnapping of the boss. The camera is placed at the level of the women who set about their work, recording their actions and debates, capturing their anger as well as their joy.
The bitter nature of the conflict does not preclude moments of jubilation for these female fighters on the road to emancipation, who sing in chorus about being fed up with their condition (“When we get home / The husband replaces the boss”). On its release in 1972, the film, representing a rallying cry against all forms of power (including unions), struggled to obtain mainstream distribution. “It was also through this experience that I gained an insight into the importance of running movie theatres,” says Karmitz in the book Comédies (Fayard, 2016). In 1974, he would open his first cinema in Paris, the 14-Juillet Bastille, renamed mk2 Bastille in 1998.

Julien Dokhan, “Troiscouleurs”, no. 159, March-April 2018