Sexual
and erotic obsessions are at the hub of French filmmaker Eric Rohmer’s
canon, but don’t expect unadorned titillation. One of the founding
critics of the history-making Cahiers du cinema, Rohmer began
translating his written manifestos to the big screen in the 1960s,
standing apart from New Wave contemporaries like Jean-Luc Godard and
François Truffaut with his patented brand of gently existential,
hyper-articulate character studies — a thematic forerunner for everyone
from Woody Allen to Gabriele Muccino and Noah Baumbach. Set chiefly
against vivid seasonal landscapes, his half dozen “Moral Tales” — a
succession of jousts between fragile, mostly inwardly reflective men
and the women who tempt them — unleashed upon the world of film a
modern, liberating and nonjudgmental voice, one at once philosophical
and liltingly insightful on sexual matters.
Criterion’s fantastic new six-disc DVD collection, which also
includes a hearty book of essays and the original stories by Rohmer,
celebrates this vision, and kicks off with 1962’s simple, jazzy,
23-minute The Bakery Girl of Monceau. The film centers on a law
student (played by future director Barbet Schroeder) with a large
appetite and equally roving eye who daily stuffs himself full of
pastries in order to garner the attentions of the pretty brunette who
works in a quaint bakery in the Parisian borough of the title. But is
he truly interested, or is she just a sweet diversion? In the following
year’s evocative, 55-minute Suzanne’s Career, Rohmer works his
way deeper into his subject of interest, telling the tale of two
friends and the girl that comes between them. Bertrand (Philippe
Beuzen) bides his time in a casually envious friendship with college
chum and ladies’ man Guillaume (Christian Charrière). But when
Guillaume seems to be making a play for the spirited, independent
Suzanne (Catherine Sée), Bertrand jealousy and disapproval become more
pronounced.
The rest of Rohmer’s works in this arena are feature-length affairs. His first color work, 1967’s La Collectionneuse,
concerns a bombastic, womanizing art dealer (Patrick Bauchau) and his
painter friend (Daniel Pommereulle), who trip to a villa on the Riviera
for a relaxing summer getaway. Their idyll is disturbed, however, by
the presence of the bohemian Haydée (Haydée Politoff), a “collector” of
men. The stars collaborated with their director on the script and
dialogue, and the result is a movie full of remarkably realistic
battle-of-the-sexes jousting.
Coming two years later, the breakout Stateside hit My Night at Maud’s
is the brilliantly accomplished centerpiece of Rohmer’s series.
Jean-Louis Trintignant plays Jean-Louis, one of the great conflicted
figures of ’60s foreign cinema. A pious Catholic engineer in his early
30s, he lives by a strict moral code in order to rationalize his world,
drowning himself in mathematics and the philosophy of Pascal. After
spotting the delicate, blonde Françoise (Marie-Christine Barrault) at
mass, he vows to make her his wife, although when he unwittingly spends
the night at the apartment of bold, brunette divorcée Maud (Françoise
Fabian), his rigid ethical standards are challenged.
Wrapping up Rohmer’s “Moral Tales” are 1970’s Claire’s Knee (above, right) and 1972’s Love in the Afternoon (below; not
to be confused with the 1957 Gary Cooper/Audrey Hepburn film of the
same name). Both films focus on the lit fuse of marital temptation and
its relationship to the powder-keg of moral crisis — the former in the
form of teenagers Beatrice Romand and Laurence de Monaghan, the latter
in the form of the singularly monikered Zouzou’s unencumbered ex-flame.
Newly
restored, high-definition digital transfers grace the set, each
supervised and approved by Rohmer. Original theatrical trailers, a
video conversation between Rohmer and onetime subject Schroeder, a
video afterward with filmmaker Neil LaBute, all manner of archival
interviews, and five of Rohmer’s short films (including 1999’s
little-seen but quite interesting The Curve) also anchor this
wonderful set, and that’s not even getting to the wealth of essays from
a wide-ranging group of contributors that includes Molly Haskell, Geoff
Andrew, Phillip Lopate and Armond White. Rohmer’s films may seem talky
and arid by the standards of some, but they’re fascinating, unfussy and
naturalistic works that have great perspicacity about human nature,
interpersonal communication and relationships both amorous and
fraternal, and they superbly grouped and presented here. A- (Movies) A (Discs)