Promoting Intellectual Film Culture Since 1973
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Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales
The Bakery Girl of Monceau (La Boulangère de Monceau) (1962) France
Suzanne’s Career (La Carrière de Suzanne) (1963) France
My Night at Maud's (Ma nuit chez Maud) (1969) France
La Collectionneuse (1969) France
Claire’s Knee (Le Genou de Claire) (1970) France
Love in the Afternoon (L’Amour, l’après-midi) (1972) France
DVD: USA, 2006 Distributed by The Criterion Collection (region 1). Sound Mix Dolby Mono 1.0 Extras New restored high-definition transfer. In French with optional new and improved English translation. Exclusive new video conversation between Eric Rohmer and Barbet Schroeder. Archival interviews with actors Jean-Claude Brialy, Béatrice Romand, Laurence de Monaghan, Jean-Louis Trintignant; film critic Jean Douchet; and producer Pierre Cottrell. Rohmer short films: Presentation, or Charlotte and Her Steak (Présentation ou Charlotte et son steak) (1951); Nadja in Paris (Nadja à Paris) (1964); A Modern Coed (Une étudiante d’aujourd’hui) (1966); The Curve (La Cambrure) (1999); and Véronique and Her Dunce (Véronique et son cancre) (1958). ‘On Pascal’ (1965), an episode of the educational TV series En profil dans le texte directed by Rohmer, with twentieth-century philosopher Brice Parain commenting on the philosophies of Blaise Pascal, the subject of debate in My Night at Maud’s. Video afterword with filmmaker and writer Neil LaBute. Original Theatrical trailers. Six Moral Tales, the original novellas by Eric Rohmer. 56-page booklet, On the Six Moral Tales, excerpts from cinematographer Nestor Almendros’s 1980 autobiography, 1948 landmark essay ‘For a Talking Cinema’ by Eric Rohmer, and new critical essays by Geoff Andrew, Ginette Vincendeau, Kent Jones, Phillip Lopate, Molly Haskell, and Armond White. Booklet contains over twenty black-and-white or color film shots.
One could not think of a better tribute to Eric Rohmer’s 86 years (born Jean-Marie Maurice Schérer, 1920) than this eloquent balance of film and written prose. Rohmer scholars and enthusiasts alike will be delighted to view the richness of trailers, shorts, interviews, critical texts and original short stories in The Criterion Collection’s release of a six-disc box set of Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales (Six contes moraux, 1962-1972). The new, restored high-definition digitally transferred films are both visually and auditorily impressive, exposing more clearly the daily life so well captured by Rohmer’s camera. Considering the importance to detail which Rohmer attributes to his filmmaking, it is not surprising that the director himself has supervised and approved each restored element in this box set. For those who have struggled with inaccurate or reductive English subtitles of the celluloid versions, the new and improved subtitle translations will be greatly appreciated for they more accurately express statements and character dialogues or monologues; ellipses are brought to a minimum; dialogue lags are largely avoided. Though the entire box set is exceptional, the true gems of this collection remain the extras which offer insight into the director’s vision of his craft.
Each of the six discs adheres to the same format: one feature and reflection on the director and his works. Five discs also include shorts, some of which have been previously available on DVD, others which are more rare finds outside of France. In the context of the Tales, two types of shorts can be identified: those which repeat in some way Rohmer’s pattern and those which deviate to offer a gendered balance to the collection. Like the Tales, Presentation, or Charlotte and Her Steak (1951) and The Curve (1999) focus on a triangle of sorts in which the male protagonist puts into question his desire and love for a woman. The recipe exists in slight variations but may be reduced to one man’s relationship with a woman, the brief interaction with a tempting second, and the return to the first. Characters, all linked directly to the male protagonist, are anchored in realism, in place and space, while their actions give cause for abstract thinking on religion, art and desire. Like all the Moral Tales, the shorts bear what Tamara Tracz has called the ‘‘hallmarks’ of a Rohmer work: the contemporary setting, the philosophical discussions, the intimate nature of the crisis of the well off, self-absorbed characters.’i Three shorts, Nadja in Paris (1964) and A Modern Coed (1966) and, to an extent, Véronique and Her Dunce (1958), depart from this model and therefore add a welcomed variety, telling the story of a female main character, one glimpse into her daily life, while positing themselves as cultural artifacts of their period (one thinks of Chris Marker’s The Beautiful May (Le Joli Mai) (1962) or Jean-Luc Godard’s narrated penal code on prostitution in My Life to Live (Vivre sa vie) (1962)).
In Véronique and Her Dunce a mere moment between a young woman preceptor and her pupil evolves into a commentary on the educational system, on the entire philosophical (even bourgeois) vision of logic and work. In the case of Nadja in Paris, the female protagonist, Nadja, narrates the short, a clin d’oeil of André Breton’s Parisian namesake of 1928, but with far more temporal markers, and along with A Modern Coed, one may easily make the comparison to the 2005 Arte release of Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin’s digitally re-mastered Chronicle of a Summer (Chronique d’un été) (1961). The latter sees itself as the urban diary of a young Hungaro-American student, whose days accurately depict the rapid changes in women’s professional and personal goals alongside the increasing population of the second sex into the public university system during the early 1960s, a reportage recalling Eliane Victor’s cinema vérité-inspired TV broadcasts, Women too… (Les femmes aussi…), the First channel, 1965-74.
Almost all TV archives resources chosen strive to satisfy the curiosity of film enthusiasts into this elusive director. Today, these archival interviews with Rohmer and those directly associated with his projects give a certain consistency to the collection by piecing together the complexity of Rohmer’s approach to his story and camera. Take for example, DVD V which includes a 1970 Journal du cinema interview with actors Jean-Claude Brialy, Béatrice Romand and Laurence de Monaghan speaking on Claire’s Knee (Le Genou de Claire) (1970), in which the interviewer tries to ‘paint a portrait of Eric Rohmer who refuses to be filmed himself’; what evolves is a delicate picture of the director, ‘a portrait,’ says Jean-Claude Brialy, ‘which is not one.’ Accompanying the restored My Night at Maud’s (Ma nuit chez Maud) (1969) is an informative 1974 Télécinéma in which Jean-Louis Trintignant, film critic Jean Douchet and producer Pierre Cottrell discuss Rohmer’s intentions and moral code which apply to his films and personal life, topics which resurface throughout the collections’ archival footage. Also worth mentioning is a 1965 episode of the educational TV series En profil dans le texte (directed by Rohmer), ‘On Pascal,’ with Brice Parain, who one will easily recognize from Nana’s café lesson on Philosophy in Godard’s My Life to Live.
One of the collection’s strengths is its balance of old and new documents: a 1977 TV interview with the director is appropriately paired with a new video conversation between Rohmer and actor/producer Barbet Schroeder highlighting the rendering of dialogue in The Bakery Girl of Monceau (La Boulangère de Monceau) (1962) and setting the tone of discussions regarding the importance the director attributes to the matching of the human voice with his chosen actor’s physique. If this exchange between Rohmer and Schroeder remains fresh and compelling, the success results from the extraordinary memory of the director and his incredible subtlety in elaborating on filmmaking and writing choices throughout his career. This emphasis on the storytelling nature of his works complements the reprint of his manifesto, “For a Talking Cinema,” seen elsewhere in the set.
A soft-bound collection of Rohmer’s novellas, the Six Moral Tales, is another clever companion to the restored films. Indeed they help qualify Rohmer as a weaver of modern tales, each anchoring the reader in a relatively closed setting while building strong characters through carefully crafted dialogues and monologues. The preface sets up Rohmer’s film philosophy and plan of attack behind the camera. Keenly aware of the control he demands from his writings, Rohmer expands on his approaches to narration and the evolution of his stories leading to his films; at the end of the five pages, one yearns for more. The response to the wish for any socio-historical contextualization or study on the state of cinema during the phases of the directors’ filmmaking comes from the booklet of the collection, On the Six Moral Tales, which fills in certain blanks to Rohmer’s cinematic philosophies imbued in his protagonists.
This booklet compiles excerpts from cinematographer Nestor Almendros’s autobiography, A Man with a Camera (1980), followed by Rohmer’s landmark essay, ‘For a Talking Cinema,’ which first appeared in Les Temps modernes, 1948. Peppered with over twenty black-and-white and color still images, almost each essay focuses on one of the Moral Tales, providing context and comparison both within the director’s career and French cinema history. Rich in details about the actual making of these films, these analyses propose researched and insightful thought in a jargon-free style for all to appreciate. In some sense, this booklet is extended by an exclusive 2006 video afterword by American filmmaker and writer Neil LaBute, who brings an in-depth query into the character building and philosophical quest in the films, while establishing for the entire collection Rohmer’s reputation and influence outside the Hexagon.
Michelle Scatton-Tessier is an assistant professor of French at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She is the author of “Rencontre avec Eliane Victor, la Grande Dame de la télévision française” (The French Review. Vol. 78.5 (April 2005): 976-987). Her research interests include French women filmmakers and writers, and the cinema of Jean-Pierre Jeunet. i Tamara Tracz, ‘Eric Rohmer, Jean-Marie Maurice Schérer’, Senses of Cinema. |
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