A Zeitgeist Films Release
Writer of
O
a film by Pola Rapaport
A ZEITGEIST FILMS RELEASE
Writer of O
a film by Pola Rapaport
Writer of O is a dramatic documentary on the long-hidden author of the world-famous,
erotic novel Story of O. Known for forty years as Pauline Réage, the author chose at 86 to
reveal herself as Dominique Aury, a mild-mannered literary editor for Gallimard, France’s
most prestigious publishing house.
The contrast of her two disparate personalities forms the center of this hybrid film, which
sets documentary footage of her and her contemporaries against dramatized scenes from
her erotic novel and fictionalized scenes from her life during the period in which she wrote
her scandalous book.
The film treats the subjects of sex and love, literature, feminism, censorship, creativity and
freedom. Central to the discovery of Aury’s motivation for writing the book is the love story
between her and her lover, the celebrated French man-of-letters, Jean Paulhan. Their
clandestine affair inspired the book and is re-created here in moving scenes from Aury’s
essay “A Girl in Love.”
Major figures in the film include the audacious publishers Jean-Jacques Pauvert in France
and Barney Rosset of Grove Press in the U.S. The British author and journalist, John de St.
Jorre, author of a revelatory article in The New Yorker which exposed Aury, leads us
through the story. Regine Deforges, the novelist and journalist who conducted a revealing
interview with Aury in 1975, Confessions of O, re-imagines that conversation with actress
Catherine Mouchet playing the role of Dominique Aury.
Scenes from Story of O are also dramatized in the film, creating an atmosphere similar to
that found at the chateau which Aury described in her book: frightening, visceral,
mysterious, and profoundly erotic.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
I was thrilled and horrified when, as an adolescent, I read in secret the best-selling erotic novel Story
of O. I always wondered who the real author was, hiding all those years behind the pseudonym Pauline
Réage.
All my life I was interested in people who kept profound secrets about their personalities, and each
time I heard about someone who did, it made me want to dig for the truth. So when I heard that a
British journalist had written a book and article unveiling the secret identity of the real writer behind
Pauline Réage, I went, as he had done, in search of her.
I visited Paris for ten days. If I could find her, I would ask her permission to make a film about her. After
much searching, I finally discovered, in an estate in the countryside, the 89-year-old real writer of O.
Meeting the author was a great inspiration. Any doubt I had about wanting to make a film on the
subject disappeared that afternoon. But it would take seven years to bring the project to fruition.
There were many things that kept me committed to the film during that time. One was the writer’s
unique personality, which was so opposite to what I had expected, and so full of humor and surprise.
There was also the topic of literary freedom and censorship, which was becoming more and more
important in the current climate of the U.S. And finally, there was the author’s desire for personal
liberation through artistic creation, the notion of which was very close to my heart.
–POLA RAPAPORT
on STORY OF O
“The free publication of Story of O in this country is an event of considerable
importance…it is a significant measure of how far we have come in lifting the
restrictions on art and our responses to it…. In brief, Story of O relates the progressive
willful debasement of a young and beautiful Parisian fashion photographer, O, who
wants nothing more than to be a slave to her lover, René. The test is severe—sexual in
method, psychological in substance…. The artistic interest here has precisely to do with
the use not only of erotic materials but also erotic methods, the deliberate stimulation
of the reader as a part of and means to a total, authentic literary experience.”
—Eliot Fremont-Smith, The New York Times
“That Pauline Réage is a more dangerous writer than the Marquis de Sade follows from
the fact that art is more persuasive than propaganda....Aiming only to reveal, to clarify,
to make real to the reader those dark and repulsive practices and emotions that his
better self rejects as improbable or evil, Pauline Réage succeeds in drawing us
irresistably into her perverse world through the magnetism of her own selfless
absorption in it. Like some exquisitely balanced, gently undulating instrument, she
carefully inscribes the cruel shocks inflicted on her heroine’s refined sensibility—and we
believe.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“An ironic fable of unfreedom, a mystic document that transcends the pornographic
and even the erotic...[it] is so horrifying, outraging cherished beliefs in the sanctity of
the body and in personal freedom.... To give the body, to allow it to be ravaged,
exploited and totally possessed, can be an act of consequence.”
—Newsweek
CAST BIOS
DOMINIQUE AURY (1907-1998)
Dominique Aury (neé Anne Declos) was born in 1907 and raised in Brittany, France, by her
grandmother. In her teens she studied at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris, and later attended the
Sorbonne where she earned an English degree. In her early twenties she was briefly married and had
one son, Philippe, who was subsequently raised by her mother.
She took the name Dominique Aury as her journalistic pseudonym in the 1920s. At the beginning of
World War II she met Jean Paulhan. At the time he was editor of a well-respected and influential literary
review, La Nouvelle Revue Française, as well as the Resistance journal Les Lettres Françaises, which she
was clandestinely distributing. In 1946 Paulhan brought her to the prestigious publisher Gallimard,
where she worked in translation, was a member of the Reading Committee, and served as the Secretary
of La Nouvelle Revue Française, selecting and editing manuscripts from many of France’s most
important new writers. Through her work as a translator at Gallimard, Aury also introduced French
readers to such English-language writers as Evelyn Waugh, Virginia Woolf, T.S. Elliot and F. Scott
Fitzgerald.
During her long career in publishing she was also a highly respected author and critic. She was awarded
such distinguished prizes as the Prix Clarouin (for translation), the Grand Prix de la Critique and
France’s Legion D’Honeur.
Beyond these accolades, Aury would cement her place in literary history with one piece of writing.
Penned in 1954 under the pseudonym Pauline Réage, Histoire d’O (Story of O) quickly became a succès
de scandale around the world and was awarded the Prix-Des-Deux-Magots. Fifteen years later, in 1969,
Aury, again as Réage, published the second part of the story of O, Return to Roissy. Despite intense
speculation for four decades, Aury’s identity as the author of the novels was not revealed publicly until
1994.
Dominique Aury died on April 27, 1998.
JEAN PAULHAN (1884-1968)
Writer and director of the prestigious La Nouvelle Revue Française (published by Gallimard since 1925),
and member of l’Academie Française, Jean Paulhan was at the center of French literary life for almost
50 years.
Paulhan met Dominique Aury at the beginning of World War II while she was clandestinely distributing
his Resistance journal Les Lettres Francaises. It was the beginning of their professional relationship as
well as a love affair which would inspire the creation of Story of O in 1954, and would last until his
death in 1968.
JEAN-JACQUES PAUVERT
A strong supporter of free speech and anti-conformism, Jean-Jacques Pauvert is an unconventional
figure in the French literary world. At the age of 20, he was the first to publish the works of the Marquis
de Sade in their entirety. Having taken up an ongoing fight against censorship, he introduced the world
to great authors such as Jean Genet, Georges Bataille, Raymond Roussel, and Boris Vian.
Story of O is one of Pauvert’s greatest publishing successes. In 1954, when Jean Paulhan had him read
the manuscript by Pauline Réage, he enthusiastically predicted, “this book will be significant in the
history of literature.”
JOHN DE ST. JORRE
When author and journalist John de St. Jorre began to write Venus Bound (Random House, 1994)—the
true story of British publisher Maurice Girodias and the Olympia Press—he realized that he would need
to track down Pauline Réage, the pseudonymous author of Olympia’s most scandalous publication,
Story of O. His research uncovered that Pauline Réage was in fact literary editor Dominique Aury, who
was still working—in her late eighties—at the prestigious French publisher Gallimard. His discovery
solved one of the world’s most stubborn literary mysteries.
The same year that Venus Bound was published, St. Jorre excerpted the chapter on Dominique Aury
and Story of O for an article in The New Yorker magazine. It immediately made literary history and set
off a flurry of tabloid articles in the French press.
St. Jorre was educated at Oxford and worked as the London Observer’s correspondent in Africa, Paris,
the Middle East and New York. With his wife and three children, he divides his time between Mallorca
and Rhode Island.
BARNEY ROSSET
Barney Rosset, born in Chicago, is a tireless crusader for First Amendment and free speech issues. As
the owner of Grove Press, he did more than perhaps any other individual in America to break down the
walls of literary censorship. Grove Press published, along with Story of O, such controversial works as
Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and William Burroughs’
Naked Lunch.
Grove Press has been called “the most influential alternative book press in the history of American
publishing.” He introduced American audiences to Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet,
Kenzaburo Oe and many other writers who have since joined the pantheon of world literature. Rosset
created the prestigious literary journal The Evergreen Review in 1957 and later branched out into
distributing arthouse films, the most controversial of which was the 1967 Swedish erotic film I Am
Curious (Yellow).
He sold Grove Press in 1985 and has continued publishing under the imprints Blue Moon Press and
Foxrock. He lives in Greenwich Village with his companion Astrid Myers.
CATHERINE MOUCHET (Young Dominique Aury)
Catherine Mouchet is best known for her role in Alain Cavalier’s 1986 film Thérèse, for which she won a
César (French Oscar) for Best Female Newcomer. Mouchet then concentrated on her first love, the
theater, until the late 1990s. She has since returned to the cinema, acting in films for such well-known
directors as Olivier Assayas (Les Destinées), Jean-Jacques Beineix (Mortel Transfert), Patrice Leconte
(Rue des Plaisirs), Pierre Jolivet and Pascal Bonitzer.
PÉNÉLOPE PUYMIRAT (O)
Pénélope Puymirat studied philosophy and psychology at University in Bordeaux and theater at Cours
Florent in Paris. In addition to her role in Writer of O, she has also worked on several short films and TV
movies. Her recent theater work includes a portrayal of the Russian author Danil Harms in Souvenirs
d’un vieux sage et autres absurdités as well as a starring role in Eric-Emmanuel Schmidt’s Milarepa.
Some of her other performances include her role as “Séductrice” for designer Philippe Starck’s
exhibition at the Pompidou Center in 2003.
FILMMAKER BIOS
POLA RAPAPORT (Writer and Director)
Pola Rapaport was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and grew up in New York City where she graduated
from the Institute of Film and TV at New York University.
Her previous work includes Family Secret, the story of the filmmaker’s discovery of her long-lost secret
Romanian brother; Blind Light, about a photographer’s peak experience in a villa in Italy, starring Edie
Falco (The Sopranos), and Broken Meat, a portrait of the mad poet Alan Granville.
Her films have shown on PBS, the Independent Film Channel and Sundance Channel in the U.S., and on
Arte, SBS, and RAI internationally. They have screened at festivals including Sundance, Toronto, FIPA,
Rotterdam, NY Docfest, Oberhausen, Amsterdam IDFA, South by Southwest and many others.
In 2005 she served on the jury of the French FIPA Film Festival and in previous years she sat on the jury
of the Newport Film Festival and the grant panel of the Jerome Foundation in Minnesota.
As a film and sound editor, Pola Rapaport has worked for Maysles Films, Columbia Artists, National
Geographic and others. She received an Emmy Award nomination for sound editing in 1994.
Pola Rapaport won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002.
FILMOGRAPHY
2004 WRITER OF O (80 mins)
2002 SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH: EYEWITNESSES (11 mins)
2000 FAMILY SECRET (58 mins)
Winner Grand Prix SCAM, France, Best Documentary of the Year
1998 BLIND LIGHT (58 mins)
1990 BROKEN MEAT (50 mins)
1989 JOANNA’S JOBS (9 mins)
1988 TOOTH AND MASK (12 mins)
1984 0,1,1,2,3,5, OR THE WALLS HAVE THE FLOOR
WOLFGANG HELD (Director of Photography)
Wolfgang Held has been the director of photography on 18 feature films, including Mo Ogrodnick’s
Ripe, Rob Morrow’s Maze, The Tic Code starring Gregory Hines, and Poster Boy, which will be released
this summer.
His documentary work includes Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, Children Underground, which was
nominated for an Oscar in 2002, and Wigstock The Movie, as well as three other films by Pola
Rapaport: Family Secret, Blind Light and Broken Meat.
Wolfgang emigrated from Bonn, Germany, in 1988 to attend film school at Temple University. He and
Rapaport are married and live in New York.
VARIETY MOSZYNSKI (Editor)
Variety Moszynski was born in Uruguay and is now working and living in Paris. She is an editor and a
filmmaker and has specialized in films about writers and artists.
In 1994 she programmed a theme evening for Arte Television on French novelist Romain Gary entitled
Gary-Ajar le double je (The Double I). Among her other documentaries is William Styron: The Way of
the Writer, which she directed for PBS and France-3 in 1996. She edited Ezra Pound, an American
Odyssey for the 1984 PBS series on poets, Voices and Visions . She moved to France from New York in
1984 to direct an earlier documentary on Romain Gary.
HÉLÈNE BLAZY (Composer)
Hélène Blazy is one of the most important young film composers in France. She started as a violinist
with the National Orchestra of the Paris Opera from 1987 to 1994, after attending the National Music
Conservatory in Paris.
She has composed and conducted the scores for six theatrical features including the HBO production
Murder on a Sunday Morning which won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. She
has composed scores for over two dozen other documentaries. She also wrote the opening music for
the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, entitled “Music Lovers.” She has published five CDs of her original
music.
SYLVIE CAZIN (Producer)
Sylvie Cazin has worked as a producer at INA since 1992. She has produced documentaries on social
subjects, on history and on art, as well as a series of portraits of and interviews with intellectuals.
ANNE SCHUCHMAN (Head of Production Department)
Anne Schuchman is the director of production and publishing at INA (National Institute of Audiovisual).
She joined INA in 2000 after several years as director of development at Arte/La Cinquième where she
was responsible for cultural and multimedia publications.
Writer of O
CAST AND CREW
Starring
CATHERINE MOUCHET as Young Dominique Aury
PÉNÉLOPE PUYMIRAT as O
CYRIL CORRAL as René
ALAIN RIMOUX as Jean Paulhan
THIERRY DE CARBONNIERES as Man in the Chateau
JEAN-YVES ROAN as Man in the Chateau
Featuring
DOMINIQUE AURY, JOHN DE ST. JORRE,
JEAN-JACQUES PAUVERT, RÉGINE DEFORGES,
BARNEY ROSSET, NICOLE ABOULKER
and ELISABETH PORQUEROL
Written and directed by POLA RAPAPORT
Produced by INA (l’Institut National de l’Audio-Visuel)
Co-Produced by ARTE and BLINDING LIGHT, INC.
Head of Production Department: ANNE SCHUCHMAN
Producer: SYLVIE CAZIN
Director of Photography: WOLFGANG HELD
Editor: VARIETY MOSZYNSKI
Music composed and conducted by HÉLÈNE BLAZY
Sound Design and Mix: MYRIAM RENÉ
Assistant director: ESTHER DE BEAUCÉ
Line Producer: MICHÈLE BOIG
USA/France • 2004 • 80 minutes • Color and B&W
In English and French with English subtitles
ZEITGEIST FILMS LTD.
247 CENTRE ST • 2ND FL • NEW YORK • NY 10013
www.zeitgeistfilms.com • mail@zeitgeistfilms.com
(212) 274-1989 • FAX (212) 274-1644
