Eric Rohmer

Plot:
The costume drama Die Marquise von O is French director Eric Rohmer’s first feature-length theatrical release after a four-year break from filmmaking. Based on a novella by Henrich von Kleist, the dialogue is spoken in the original German language and the story is set in Italy during the 18th century. Edith Clever plays the widowed Marquise, who is sexually assaulted by Russian soldiers and rescued by a Count (Bruno Ganz). Some time later, she has to explain to her parents (Peter Lühr and Edda Seippel) and brother (Otto Sander) why she’s pregnant. Die Marquise von O won the Grand Jury Prize in the 1976 Cannes Film Festival. At least one of the home video releases and several capsule reviews erroneously state the film (and its parent novella) as unfolding during the Franco-Prussian wars, but both are actually set during the Napoleonic Wars, hence the presence of Russian troops.Read More »

Eric Rohmer’s mostly faithful staging of Heinrich von Kleist’s play Käthchen von Heilbronn. It was taped in 1979 at the Theatre des Amandiers, Nanterre for broadcast on French TV. After Die Marquise von O…, this is Rohmer’s second Kleist adaptation, and it features a lot of familiar faces in the Rohmersphere.Read More »

Quote:
A series of five stories told by Rosette about her vacation.

Rosette wrote:
“In the early 80’s, I started shooting Rosette’s adventures in Super 8. They were vacation films made in complete freedom with a family of friends I met in Eric’s world (Arielle, Pascal, Marie, Amanda, Béatrice, Virginie, François-Marie…). Eric, who had a camera, took care of the image and this allowed him to practice while having fun, sometimes he even played a small role. This lightness inspired him, I believe, for films like Le rayon vert or Quatre aventures de Reinette et Mirabelle.”Read More »

Présentation ou Charlotte et son steak (1960)

Quote:
Two young people, Walter and Charlotte, are walking through a small village in Switzerland a snowy winter day. Walter introduces Charlotte to Clara, hoping to make Charlotte jealous. After saying good-bye to Clara, Walter accompanies Charlotte into her house, although she doesn’t want him to. Charlotte is hungry and cooks a steak. She asks Walter if he wants a piece of it. He says no, but she gives him a small piece anyway. He wants a kiss, and she says no. She starts to compare herself with Clara, who Walter agrees is more beautiful. In spite of this, Walter says he likes Charlotte much more, but she thinks he is lying. She notices that he is cold and shivering. She hugs him, he kisses her, and she starts kissing him. After leaving the house he accompanies her to the train.Read More »

A shy maths graduate takes a holiday in Dinard before starting his first job. He hopes his sort-of girlfriend will join him, but soon strikes up a friendship with another girl working in town. She in turn introduces him to a further young lady who fancies him. Thus the quiet young lad finds he is having to do some tricky juggling in territory new to him.Read More »

Quote:
Pauline a la Plage is the third of French filmmaker Eric Rohmer’s “Comedies et Proverbes.” Pauline (Amanda Langlet) is the teen-aged cousin of the seemingly more worldly and sensible Marion (Arielle Dombasle). Both girls become entwined in amorous escapades while vacationing at the beach. It gradually develops that Marion is the one least capable of handling herself, while Pauline grows in maturity from her summertime experiences. It is nothing short of amazing how Eric Rohmer can take the most conventional and obvious of material and weave something as charming and profound as Pauline at the Beach. ~ Hal Erickson, RoviRead More »

Quote:
Simple conversations engender complicated human interactions. Jeanne is open and even-tempered, a philosophy teacher at a lycée. Her fiancé is away and she doesn’t want to stay at his messy flat; she’s loaned hers to a cousin, so she accepts the invitation of Natasha, a music student whom she meets at a party, to sleep in her father Igor’s bedroom.Read More »

A law student regularly visits a Paris bakery to flirt with a brunette employee.Read More »

Nadja is a guest student, who stays at Cité Universitaire and visits the Sorbonne, while preparing a thesis on Proust. Besides her student life she likes to stroll about Paris, to explore the variety of this wide and open city. She knows Saint-Germain-des-Prés well, but feels more comfortable among the bohemians, painters and writers in Montparnasse. Sometimes she wants to get out of the narrow area of intellectual Paris. She then goes to the park Buttes Chaumont and the working class neighborhood of Belleville. There she discovers a world that is simpler and more characteristic of France. This helps her to distance herself from everything that was superficial in her life. She thinks that Paris teaches you more about yourself than you learn about the city.Read More »