Les Nuits de Eric Rohmer (1)
La Femme de l'aviateur (1981)
directed by Eric Rohmer
rating: 5 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from the vaults
Free at last of Gus Van Sant, I needed to wash my hands; how better than Maurice Scherer? Rohmer's Comédies et proverbes sextet, and not the Contes moraux, are the central artifacts of his fundamental romantic philosophy. The Contes moraux, after all, are religious anecdotes, and despite their naturalism, unerringly reward self-involved male protagonists with closure for choices Rohmer insists were well-made - cluckish reinforcements that none of them deserve. The victims of this Jansenist cold shoulder are us, who wonder why this director has a reputation for his actresses, and for the women they play, infinitely rich in their inner lives but passed over by Rohmer in his quest of Percevalian perversity.
With Perceval le Gallois, Rohmer got that nonsense out of his system and grew up (at sixty-one!) to make La Femme de l'aviateur. It stars Marie Rivière (with Beatrice Romand, the director's definitive "she"), who is similar in some ways to the eponymous temptress in Ma nuit chez Maud. Here, unlike Maud, Anne wins not only our sympathy, but Rohmer's, too. The ostensible protagonist, François, is a good enough sort; he wants to do right by Anne. But Anne is the only character to really think the film's many love affairs through (for Lucie, the girl in the park, her afternoon with François is, simply, a nice distraction). Maybe Rohmer just needed an everyday relationship, complete with scheduling conflicts, to transition from the inhuman remove of - well, even Le Genou de Claire - to the real world.
"Do you believe me?" asks François.
"What difference does it make?" replies Lucie. "I'm sure there's truth in what you say, but you tell a good story, too. So do I, but only to people who don't. Some talk and others listen." I think Rohmer finally listened, and I think, with time, that method became one of the transcendent few in movies.
directed by Eric Rohmer
rating: 5 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from the vaults
Free at last of Gus Van Sant, I needed to wash my hands; how better than Maurice Scherer? Rohmer's Comédies et proverbes sextet, and not the Contes moraux, are the central artifacts of his fundamental romantic philosophy. The Contes moraux, after all, are religious anecdotes, and despite their naturalism, unerringly reward self-involved male protagonists with closure for choices Rohmer insists were well-made - cluckish reinforcements that none of them deserve. The victims of this Jansenist cold shoulder are us, who wonder why this director has a reputation for his actresses, and for the women they play, infinitely rich in their inner lives but passed over by Rohmer in his quest of Percevalian perversity.
With Perceval le Gallois, Rohmer got that nonsense out of his system and grew up (at sixty-one!) to make La Femme de l'aviateur. It stars Marie Rivière (with Beatrice Romand, the director's definitive "she"), who is similar in some ways to the eponymous temptress in Ma nuit chez Maud. Here, unlike Maud, Anne wins not only our sympathy, but Rohmer's, too. The ostensible protagonist, François, is a good enough sort; he wants to do right by Anne. But Anne is the only character to really think the film's many love affairs through (for Lucie, the girl in the park, her afternoon with François is, simply, a nice distraction). Maybe Rohmer just needed an everyday relationship, complete with scheduling conflicts, to transition from the inhuman remove of - well, even Le Genou de Claire - to the real world.
"Do you believe me?" asks François.
"What difference does it make?" replies Lucie. "I'm sure there's truth in what you say, but you tell a good story, too. So do I, but only to people who don't. Some talk and others listen." I think Rohmer finally listened, and I think, with time, that method became one of the transcendent few in movies.
posted by NPK at 11:20 AM
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