Happy Birthday, Éric Rohmer! Born today in 1920 as Maurice Henri Joseph Schérer or Jean Marie Maurice Schérer, this French journalist, novelist, teacher, film critic,, screenwriter and film director was the last of the post-World War II French New Wave directors to become established.
This was while most of his colleagues were making the transition from film critics to filmmakers and gaining international attention.Among them wereJean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut.
Rohmer's career began to gain momentum with a cycle of films that he titled Six Moral Tales.
Each tale follows the same story, inspired by German film director F. W. Murnau's 1927 American silent black and white romantic drama/mystery film 'Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans'.
Of these tales, Rohmer is best known for the third installment. This was the 1969 French black and white drama/comedy-drama film 'Ma nuit chez Maud' ('My Night at Maud's').
Jean-Louis (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is a devout Roman Catholic of whom subscribes to an austere moral code influenced by the philosophy of Blaise Pascal.
When he spots Françoise, (Marie-Christine Barrault), a pretty girl at church, Jean-Louis promises to one day marry her.
However, his old friend Vidal (Antoine Vitez) introduces him to alluring divorcee Maud (Françoise Fabian).
After a conversation about love and philosophy, the chaste Jean-Louis spends the night at Maud's place, conflicted about what he desires.
In the early 1990s, Rohmer made a third cycle of films, of which were entitled Tales of the Four Seasons.
Of these, he is best known for writing and directing the second installment, being the 1992 French romance/drama film 'Conte d'hiver' ('A Tale of Winter').
The film tells of a woman named Félicie (Charlotte Véry), of whom has an affair with her boss Maxence (Michel Voletti) and a librarian
However, Félicie longs for Charles (Frédéric van den Driessche), the man of whom she met five years ago.
Unfortunately, he had written down and given Félicie the wrong address at the train station right before he was about to depart.
After Rohmer's death on January 11, 2010, his obituary in The Daily Telegraph described him as "the most durable filmmaker of the French New Wave", outlasting his peers and "still making movies the public wanted to see" late in his career.
Rohmer's films concentrate on intelligent, articulate protagonists who frequently fail to own up to their desires. The contrast between what they say and what they do fuels much of the drama in his films.
Rohmer had been active from 1945–2009.
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