Hi there I’m starting a fan club. Wanna join? Now I’ve only seen one movie he directed, but that won’t stop me. I’m gonna watch them all now. It’s something to do. That should perk your ears. Aren’t you looking for something to do? More importantly, it’s something to do with other people.
Let’s watch Éric Rohmer together.
First up is Bérénice, based on a Poe story. French people love Poe because he’s American. Also, French poetry wouldn’t exist if Baudelaire didn’t translate Poe. So here we are in the 50’s. Looking over his oeuvre*, I get the impression that Rohmer likes to read books. He thinks you also like to read books. He is putting books on film so you can enjoy books even when you’re in the cinema on a date.
There are a lot of scenes with people lounging in an unkempt yard in the early winter. Ouah, the house is André Bazin’s! The dark interiors remind me of how 70’s films were shot. Ho, and do you recognize Egaeus? Why, that is none other than Éric himself! He creeps around like Nosferatu. Très effrayant! Please enjoy and be sure to leave a letter or two on this topic before you leave.
I have seen, let’s see … about sixteen Rohmer movies. They’re all great and despite what one might have heard they are some of the least boring movies I know because they’re always human-sized. My favourite is Quatre aventures de Reinette et Mirabelle.
When I was, I think, around 13 years old I would sneak out and watch television in the wee hours and one day chanced on public broadcasting showing Claire’s Knee. I don’t know what I found compelling about it. It was just a French guy mulling over what seemed to me the weirdest (and yet mildest) psychosexual obsession. When the station announced it would be showing more of Rohmer’s Moral Tales on subsequent nights I resolved to watch them. I think like American film distributors of the 60s I thought the French would eventually produce a boob for me to see. They kind of did? Love in the Afternoon has at least one (1) butt in it, I think. It’s been a long time.
Anyway that was my first experience with French Cinema. Still like listening to French people talk about things petty and not, now and then. Thanks Eric.
One month ago I chose to watch one Godart, one Truffaut, and one Rohmer movie, ultimately concluding that Truffaut > Rohmer >> Godart with only this point of reference
I wouldn’t call myself a fan yet but Green Ray was very good, a very delicate movie, failed holidays, the failure to fit in, the desire to just leave, a green ray laboriously shot on camera, what’s not to love
I like em all, more or less. The sum effect of having a bunch of people realize their creative visions is more powerful than any one person’s contribution.
Rohmer has been on my list for a long while, but i’ve never gotten around to it. what a perfect thread idea. first up- we watched La Rayon Vert last night. i loved a whole lot about it. it’s tender and languid, but the melancholy gives it a fuller texture. also really liked how Delphine remains resolute about how she chooses to move through life, despite all the naysayers. speaking of Delphine, those outfits! très bien! i haven’t read the namesake novel, but i appreciated the book club/tourists filling me in on the synopsis. it’s nice because watching the movie felt like a lil vacation for myself, a chance to look inwards and see new sights. best paint i’ve seen dry in a minute. looking forward to more, merci pour l’été du cinéma minty!
First reason this thread was created is that Dash Shaw said he loved Rohmer, and I haven’t even read a Dash Shaw comic! Second reason was I realized both Tulpa and I have only seen one Rohmer movie. I would love to watch some as a group.
I watched un autre! The Kreutzer Sonata, that’s right folks, our boy is adapting another 19th century oeuvre littéraire. I read more of his bio and it turns out being Catholic was kind of a big deal for him. He even wrote a book on how being Catholic was a big deal for another director, Hitchcock. I’m not going to pretend I know exactly what that means for him culturally or psychologically, but let’s all agree it had an impact.
This movie rules btw. It’s an exercise in style. Rohmer takes the tools of silent cinema and puts them into a contemporary setting: fast editing, hard lighting, and physical acting. Oh yeah, there’s no synchronized sound and most of the soundtrack is a dramatic piano supporting Rohmer’s narration. It made me think, was there a history of this type of performance in France? One where a narrator would narrate the poetic thoughts of the characters while a film played? Seems like something that could’ve existed…
Éric plays a man who is infatuated with a young woman. He is entirely cerebral and barely hangs on to social relationships. And yet…this woman marries him. Is this our first Rohmerian “romance?” We’ll see! But I really enjoyed how unsympathetic the main man is despite the fact that everything is told from his perspective. À tout à l’heure!
Charlotte and Her Steak has a rare Godard sans-sunglasses as the male opposite the titular Charlotte. “Her Steak” definitely earns its place in the title. I was fascinated by how she took this cooked steak out of the fridge-hutch and reheated it in a pan with butter and salt. She used her stove like a countertop and had a separate gas burner on the side. Even though this was filmed in 1951, it has synchronized audio and dialogue. He says “I like you more than her.” “I hate comparisons,” she replies. He says, “I wish I’d die so you would think of me.” They kiss. These twelve minutes have the juice.
Véronique and Her Dunce
This feels like an exercise in dialogue. A tutor spends an hour with an unconcerned student. Their back and forth, the exasperation, it feels true to life. She’s pretty bad at teaching math. Then again, I don’t think I could explain why dividing something by a fraction means you multiply the reciprocal. I honestly can’t think of a concrete way of demonstrating what that means, I just know how to follow the directions. There’s this gestural detail where she takes off her shoe under the table. For a moment, she’s not a serious tutor, but an unprofessional amateur. Let me tell you, I’ve been there!
I’ve been committing a cardinal sin of the Éric Rohmer fanclub: I’m watching Rohmer but not talking Rohmer. I’ve seen three more of his movies. That’s really not as impressive as it sounds since he made so many short ones.
I saw the first of his contes moraux: La boulangere de Monceau. This is the first of his films that I found to be truly complete in its style. A man becomes infatuated by a woman he sees walking on the street. He asks her out. She says no, but they run into each other enough so maybe next time. This begins the man’s month-long routine of walking back and forth at the same area of the city so he can meet her again. Part of his routine is getting a pastry from the same girl at a bakery and now we have a “love” triangle.
Rohmer’s men so far have been varying flavors of misogynist. This man always crumples up his pastry sheet and throws it in the drain. Seems like a clear metaphor to me.
Next up, I watched Suzanne’s Career. This has been the longest I’ve seen yet, a whopping 54 minutes. In this one, two men charm a young woman. Once they grow bored and annoyed of her, they don’t really tell her to leave. Instead, they just string her along and take whatever generosity she sends their way. I really did not enjoy being inside of Bertrand’s head. There’s another great visual metaphor when the three characters use a table to perform a seance.
Last was a bit like a film diary, told from the perspective of Nadja Tesich, a Yugoslav-American living in Paris. She’s a real person and it all comes across as an earnest display of her thoughts about what she appreciates about Paris.
Watching all of these movies so closely together makes for a surprisingly coherent experience. I can almost smell all the bread and cigarettes.
I’m joining the club! I watched Le Rayon Vert! this movie feels like a friend. it feels like your favorite shirt. last year I was reading Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space (beautiful, relaxing read btw) which touches at one point on the coincidence between rayon’s two meanings, ray and shelf. it quotes lines from Charles Péguy:
Aux rayons de mémoire et aux temples de l’armoire.
(On the shelves of memory and in the temples of the wardrobe)
and André Breton:
L’armoire est pleine de linge
Il y a même des rayons de lune que je peux déplier.
(The wardrobe is filled with linen
There are even moonbeams which I can unfold.)
my green shelf has memories of hydrangeas on martha’s vineyard, usually more blue than the ones delphine sees in biarritz. they call them hortensias there, though.
I’ve been watching little documentaries and essays he made for television. They are basically PBS educational segments. Although he’s clearly skilled at dialogue and writing, the documentaries show how much he thinks about visual motifs. We watched La Collectionneuse and I repeatedly admired the photography in it.
