Seven Days... Seven Nights
1960 film by Peter Brook

Seven Days... Seven Nights (French: Moderato cantabile) is a 1960 French drama film directed by Peter Brook. It was entered into the 1960 Cannes Film Festival, where Jeanne Moreau won the award for Best Actress. The film is based on the 1958 novel Moderato cantabile by Marguerite Duras.
Plot
Anne Desbarèdes is a young woman who is married to a wealthy businessman and lives a monotonous existence in the small commune town of Blaye. After indirectly witnessing a murder in a café, she returns to the scene of the crime the next day and meets Chauvin, who informs her in more detail about the events that took place. Mentally unbalanced, Anne begins to believe that Chauvin intends to kill her.
Cast
Jeanne Moreau as Anne Desbarèdes
Jean-Paul Belmondo as Chauvin
Pascale de Boysson as bar owner
Jean Deschamps as M. Desbarèdes
Didier Haudepin as Pierre
Colette Régis as Miss Giraud
Valeric Dobuzinsky as Assassin (as Valéric)
Production
Marguerite Duras novella Moderato cantabile was published in 1958. Peter Brook secured the film rights and wanted to offer the lead role to Jeanne Moreau, whom he had directed in a Paris production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
However, Brook's only other film, The Beggar's Opera, had been a box-office flop and he found difficulty raising money.
“Seven Days... Seven Nights” enters the record as 1960 film by Peter Brook. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Seven, Days and Nights can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Seven Days... Seven Nights” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Seven, Days and Nights provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2531368. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1960 and 1958.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Seven Days... Seven Nights”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Seven Days... Seven Nights primary sources, Seven Days... Seven Nights archive and Seven research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Seven Days... Seven Nights”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Seven Days... Seven Nights” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.