Eric Rohmer was born in the French town of Nancy on April 4, 1920 (some sources incorrectly say December 1). He had the wonderfully French name Jean-Marie Maurice Scherer, not adopting "Eric Rohmer" until the late 1940s as a somewhat unlikely combination of director Eric von Stroheim and novelist Sax Rohmer (creator of Fu Manchu). His early impulses were towards writing, so Rohmer drifted through newspaper and teaching positions, even publishing a pseudonymous novel immediately after the war. But like so many of his fellow soon-to-be New Wavers he became fascinated by the variety of films showing at the Cinematheque Francais, provocatively programmed by one of the cinema's little-sung geniuses, Henri Langlois. In 1952, Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette joined the staff of the recently formed journal Cahiers du Cinema, where they found the freedom to work out their groundbreaking ideas about movies. Rohmer himself was editor from 1956 to 1963, until a political controversy drove him out. He still found the time in 1957 to co-author with Claude Chabrol a serious study of Alfred Hitchcock back when most English-speakers considered Hitchcock a superior entertainer but little more. During this busy period Rohmer also started directing short films, finally making the feature Le Signe du Lion in 1959, the same year as Godard's first feature. Rohmer began work on a film series called "Six Moral Tales" which shares not characters or plot but the theme of beliefs challenged by unusual circumstances. Rohmer finished the first two in the series before leaving Cahiers but afterwards put it on hold while directing documentaries for French television. Rohmer was soon able to complete the Six Moral Tales with films such as My Night at Maud's (1969) and La Collectioneuse (1967) before moving to an Arthurian drama Perceval (1978) and the literary adaptation The Marquise of O (1976). He started another series he called "Comedies and Proverbs," this time focusing less on individuals and more on how groups of people interact. Pauline at the Beach(1983) , for instance, focuses on the romantic adventures of two young women and their suitors but never resorts to standard movie situations. Lately Rohmer has been working on a third series, "Tales of the Seasons." Rohmer once said, "I love to portray thinking people, people gifted with a psyche." Of all the New Wave directors, Rohmer may the easiest to dismiss. He doesn't have the blatant experimentalism of Godard or Rivette, the puppydog friendliness of Truffaut or the violent tastes of Chabrol. But if anything Rohmer has been the most consistent, for over forty years making strong films that have found appreciative audiences who enjoy his unpretentious sophistication, wry sense of humor and deep feel for characters. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 11:00 pm (et)/8:00 pm (pt) LA COLLECTIONNEUSE (1967) Adrien might be best off pulling the petals from a daisy and reciting, "She loves me, she loves me not." In Eric Rohmer's La Collectioneuse, Adrien is a layabout artist who retreats to a large country house when his girlfriend leaves for an extended business trip in England. There he spends his time reading in the sun, talking to his antique dealer buddy and swimming. A pleasant routine until the arrival of Haydee, a friend of the house's owner. Haydee is the collector of the title ("la collectioneuse" is the feminine version of "collector") and what she collects is men. Haydee runs through a series of brief flings and one-night stands until Adrien starts to wonder if she has her eye on him. Does she? La Collectioneuse is the fourth in Rohmer's Moral Tales series (though actually the third filmed) but don't let that throw you. The "series" doesn't share any characters or plot so you can watch any one without being lost. Rohmer says, "I conceived of my moral tales as symphonic variations." And the "moral tales" might sound high-falutin' but really La Collectioneuse focuses on a situation you might find in any soap opera, though admittedly the situation here is never quite as clear cut. Rohmer is more an observer and though he's taking a somewhat satirically detached view of the characters' problems, he's also somewhat in sympathy with them. Rohmer met actor Patrick Bauchau, future director Donald Cammell (Performance; he also appears in one scene), cinematographer Nestor Almendros, and Barbet Schroder in Schroder's mother's apartment in the mid-60s. Together they made two hour-long films before embarking on La Collectioneuse. Rohmer chose a house in St. Tropez near an abandoned torpedo factory and the entire cast and crew moved into it while filming. Since the budget was only $12,000 they wore their own clothes and cooked their own meals until Schroder found an Italian woman living locally who would cook for them, minestrone being a speciality. Though cinematographer Almendros used five photoflood lamps for some scenes, the house itself had no electricity so filming there was done mostly at dusk and dawn so the light would be very similar. Photographer Helmut Newton even loaned a car for use in one scene. The film's young leads received co-credit for dialogue but what happened to them afterwards? Patrick Bauchau (Adrien) was born in Belgium, raised in Switzerland and had just graduated from Oxford when he appeared in La Collectioneuse as part of its mostly non-professional cast. He became a buddy with critic Andrew Sarris before starting a long and varied career, most visibly as Sydney Green on the TV series The Pretender though also appearing in an odd mix of films like Clear and Present Danger, Wim Wenders' Lisbon Story, Dario Argento's Phenomena and Emmanuelle 4. Haydée Politoff (who also played Haydée) was less wide-ranging, instead focusing on such horror films as Cemetary Girls and Queens of Evil (though a great title has to be Don't Play With Martians). Politoff even made a cameo appearance in Rohmer's Chloe in the Afternoon before she appears to have retired from the screen. Director: Eric Rohmer Producer: Georges de Beauregard, Barbet Schroeder Screenplay: Eric Rohmer Cinematography: Nestor Almendros Editor: Jacquie Raynal Music: Blossom Toes, Giorgio Gomelsky Principle Cast: Patrick Bauchau (Adrien), Daniel Pommereulle (Daniel), Haydee Politoff (Haydee), Alain Jouffroy (Writer). In French with English subtitles C-88m. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 11:00 pm (et)/8:00 pm (pt) MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S (1969) Original French title: Ma nuit chez Maud What happens during My Night at Maud's may not be exactly what you would expect. Jean-Louis is an engineer who moves out to the provinces. A devout Catholic, he is at Mass one day when an attractive woman catches his attention but he's not able to meet her. Later Jean-Louis runs into an old friend he hasn't see in 14 years and that friend takes him along to meet a smart, pretty divorced doctor, Maud. As the night goes along Jean-Louis and Maud become more and more attracted to each other. How will the night end? Not an action-packed story but My Night at Maud's became a surprise sensation and commercial success. The film was nominated for two Oscars, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay. Both Andrew Sarris and Roger Ebert chose it as one of the ten best films of 1970 (he came out in France a year earlier). Filmmaker Robert Benton chose it as one of his ten favorite of all time. Why such acclaim? After all, this isn't a rowdy teen comedy but a film where adults mostly talk and they talk about everything from philosophy to Christmas tree lights. (Rohmer claimed that idea came to him because of the restraints during World War Two curfews.) That in itself seems fresh even decades later. As Rohmer said, "The people in my films are not expressing abstract ideas - there is no `ideology' in them, or very little - but revealing what they think about relationships between men and women, about friendship, love, desire, their conception of life, happiness, boredom, work, leisure." My Night at Maud's came at a transition point for actor Jean-Louis Trintignant (playing Jean-Louis). In the dozen years since his film debut he'd made about 30 films, most of them inconsequential. But now he started working with Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, Bernardo Bertolucci, Sergio Corbucci and other top directors. But it was the two female leads who apparently really impressed Rohmer. Marie-Christine Barrault (making her debut as the woman in the church) and Françoise Fabian (Maud) would both later appear in Rohmer's Chloe in the Afternoon. Director: Eric Rohmer Producer: Pierre Cottrell, Barbet Schroeder Screenplay: Eric Rohmer Cinematography: Nestor Almendros Editing: Cecile Decugis Music: Mozart Principal Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant (Jean-Louis), Francoise Fabian (Maud), Marie-Christine Barrault (Francoise), Antoine Vitez (Vidal). In French with English subtitles BW-105m. by Lang Thompson