This Friday and Saturday American Cinematheque will present a tribute to French director Eric Rohmer at the Aero theatre.
Eric Rohmer (1921 – 2010), one of the founding filmmaker-critics of the influential French New Wave, developed a contemplative, beautifully rhythmic cinematic language all his own. At a time when film tastes were shifting toward genre and visual stylistics, Rohmer, once a novelist and teacher of literature, retained focus on the nuances of conversation and interaction. In a Rohmer film, what is said and done between characters is important – while what is left unsaid and undone between characters is vitally important. This is seen throughout Rohmer’s most famous series of films, “The Six Moral Tales,” begun in 1963. In MY NIGHT AT MAUD’S, the Rohmer film best-known film to American audiences and the second feature-length installment in the series, a man and a woman are thrown together for a snowbound evening of existential discussion. The result is an elegant character study that unhurriedly reveals modern dilemmas and daily tragedies with frankness and even humor. This same patient attention to wordplay is prevalent in Rohmer’s other “Moral Tale” masterworks, CLAIRE’S KNEE, CHLOE IN THE AFTERNOON and LA COLLECTIONNEUSE.
Please join us for a weekend tribute to the magnificent career of Eric Rohmer with his “Six Moral Tales,” which also includes screenings of the shorts “The Bakery Girl of Monceau” and “Suzanne’s Career.” See the schedule on our website.
Friday, July 16 – 7:30 PM at the Aero
Double Feature:
MY NIGHT AT MAUD’S (MA NUIT CHEZ MAUD),1969, Wellspring, 105 min. Winner of Cannes’ Golden Palm and nominated for an Oscar, this film remains one of the most successful attempts to unravel the complex human psyche. Narrator Jean-Louis Trintignant vows to marry, only to fall in fascination with another woman, divorcee Maud (Françoise Fabian).
CLAIRE’S KNEE (LE GENOU DE CLAIRE), 1970, Wellspring, 105 min. Dir.Eric Rohmer. While vacationing, Jean-Claude Brialy becomes obsessed with a desire to have tactile contact with a certain body part of teenage Claire (Laurence de Monaghan).
Plus, prior to the first feature: “The Bakery Girl of Monceau,” (1962, 23 min). A young man (Barbet Schroeder) pursues a beautiful woman he meets randomly on the street, but when days go by without seeing her, he develops a new object of affection: the girl working in the local bakery.
Saturday, July 17 – 7:30 PM at the Aero
Double Feature:
LA COLLECTIONNEUSE, 1967, Les Films du Losange, 89 min. Dir. Eric Rohmer. When cultured art dealer Adrien (Patrick Bauchau) retreats to a Mediterranean villa with his close friend for a quiet summer of reading and relaxing, he doesn’t count on the presence of a third roommate – Haydee (Haydee Politoff), a young woman whose free-spirited, sexually uninhibited behavior is an unwelcome addition to the planned serenity.
CHLOE IN THE AFTERNOON (L’AMOUR L’APRES MIDI), 1972, Les Films du Losange, 97 min. Dir. Eric Rohmer. Affable businessman Frederick (Bernard Verley) inhabits a healthy, loving marriage with his wife, with seemingly little to disrupt it. Then he falls for the aggressively desirable Chloe (Zouzou), and his carefully functioning universe is set askew. Plus, prior to the first feature: “Suzanne’s Career,” (1963, 54 min). Two friends, one a shy pharmacologist and one a slick womanizer, each go after a different woman, using drastically different techniques.
