Eric Rohmer: C/D

Because you don't have a $25 dvd player, Ms. Class Signifiers (semi-colon, hyphen, closing parenthesis). If you did, you'd be able to tell when the dvd production people are half-assing it or not. About 2/3s of the subtitles stay up for only about 1 or 2 frames.

so sorry - I have a $35 dvd player.

Why would you assume I have some fancy DVD player anyway?

Coby or gtfo.

LOL! - I have a Coby story, but I'm gtfo-ing.

What Rohmer was quick to grasp, and what accounts for his singularity, is the constitutive ambiguity of the "point of view" in film—the impossibility, when filming, of occupying an attributable place, a fate both fortunate and cruel. Or, as Bonitzer would say, the filmmaker's singular fate of being both transparent and masked. A cinema of frivolity? Rather a cinema of cruelty, but in the stark summer light: "On neither the sun, nor death, can a man look fixedly," wrote another great French moralist, La Rochefoucauld. Triple Agent closes with a terse, legal, "she is dead," which casts the coldest possible gaze upon a love story. Wrongly dismissed from the New Wave by some as a "classicist," triple-agent Rohmer coined a unique variation on the most famous of modernist cinematic tropes. In his films, Harriet Andersson's or Jean-Paul Belmondo's stark stare into the lens is cruelly reversed onto the protagonists and onto the narrative itself.

http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/a-cinema-of-cruelty-20100115

that sounds p clever but ehhh no. "the filmmaker's singular fate of being both transparent and masked" is a vraiment example of le having it both ways.

perhaps im being stupid, but what does the first sentence mean? in detail, i mean, with reference to an actual moment in a rohmer film. (indeed, an early rohmer film, because he was "quick to grasp" the "constitutive ambiguity" meme.) it sounds a lot like "presence in absence", which is a kind of annoying concept, partly for its ubiquity in film studies.

I just post.

as I already posted somewhere, a friend of mine once said that at the end of all of Rohmer's films you realize that the main action has happened off camera or rather that the main story was not the one being filmed. Could taht be the "constitutive ambiguity of the "point of view" in film"?

I am watching Summer again tonight, which is an exception to that pattern -- the climax is a real climax, and the plot is pretty straightforward.

history mayne - Transparent and masked because the transparency is in the filmmaking and the masking is in the storytelling, maybe. The masking is in the ironies - the characters not saying what they mean, &c.

baaderonixx - The main story is happening off-screen? So in "The Girl at the Monceau Bakery," the story of the girl the hero chases is our real story? Or the story of the girl at the bakery? To me it seems like the story presented is our story. Does your friend say that because of narrative sleights-of-hand or because of inferences you have to make into what resides in the characters? Or something I'm not considering.

Anyway, you friend's idea is interesting.

nah i *think* what it means -- coz it's the filmmaker's fate -- is that (this is certainly what film theorists use "presence-in-absence" to mean) well, we know where the camera is placed. but in the reverse shot we don't ever see it. hence the look into the lens being deeply significant. i could be wrong but i've read stuff along those lines. i don't think she convincingly relates it to rohmer though.

and i mean, in the rohmer films i've seen, the significant action is what we see. not in that french revolution one (quite liked that iirc).

I'll try to find time to read the article this weekend and think about it. I don't think it relates, either, if that's what she's saying.

xxp. I don't remember how the Boulangère de Manceau ends anymore, but for ex. Suzanne's Career or Full Moon in Paris ends with the realization that while the main featured character was discussing what to do, making us believe he/she was the one in control of the story being told, the real action (in both meanings of the word) and the decision-making was being done by the absent character (ie. Suzanne, or Pascale Ogier's boyfriend)

Interesting interview with him on the DVD of La Collectionneuse. Didn't know he was such a chatterbox, although maybe that shouldn't have been a surprise.

Gonna watch "Perceval" tonite

I think I read My Night at Maud's and Love in the Afternoon. Both were excellent. Though I haven't seen My Night at Maud's because of how poorly the subtitles are programmed (and by Criterion, too).

Watched My Night at maud's yesterday and I think its a new (bfi) print and the subtitles seem fine.

Other than that I enjoyed it enough, actually think is the best one of his I've seen, but don't have an awful lot more to say.

Le Rayon Vert/Summer is playing in NY then touring, in a new print.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/le-rayon-vert/5556

I was going to post your review, which I quite enjoyed.

i really love 'claire's knee.' will have to check out the rest of those moral tales at some point.

Le Rayon Vert has to be the Rohmer film I enjoyed watching the most the very first time. I watched it when trapped in my house for seven days during a freeze. The character seemed annoyingly neurotic to me when the film began but I quickly sympathized and understood her issues and came to like that character more and more.

I saw 4 Adventures of Reinette & Mirabelle for the first time in 20+ years; it's a fun trifle. Then Marie Riviere did an onstage interview before a video-doc profile she made of E.R. was shown (alas I had to choose dinner over the doc). She described Rayon Vert's improvised dialogue, and choked up at the end.

Oh how cool!!!!

I'm watching My Night at Maud's and bored out of my goddamn mind. Is there a better approach toRohmer for a newcomer?

I'm not sure what it is that's turned me off so thoroughly; I guess maybe a combination of his, um, restrained visual style and the focus on Christianity? Or maybe I just had a shitty day and I'm coming to it with the wrong mindset, which is also a distinct possibility.

Wrong mindset perhaps. It's pretty stage-y for a film w/multiple locations. I last watched it around last x-mas and was reminded how well Rohmer could capture feelings and vibes, in this case those of the holiday season and taking stock of the past on one hand while gripping the future with the other.

Its Catholicism is its most interesting element, especially with an actor as rigorous as vinegary as Trintignant mouthing the abstractions.

*and vinegary

It was my first Rohmer. I loved it.

Yeah, Trintignant has Been the beat part of the film by far-I'll have to come back to this later, I'm letting too much personal stuff get in the way of what I can at least tell is a thoughtful and carefully crafted film. It took me a while to warm up to Chavrol, too.

Chabrol! DAMN YOU IPHONE

I can't believe tomorrow is my first viewing of La collectionneuse

Watched La collectionneuse last week which I loved. The 2nd comment on this thread accuses Rohmer of being visually low key but he doesn't half use some stunning locations. The Lake Annecy location in Claire's Knee is also beautiful.

I am a convert.

A Summer's Tale ('96) is beginning to make the arthouse rounds -- apparently it's never gotten a commercial US release, but that still feels like a weird marketing ploy; not only have NYC rep houses shown it regularly for 15+ years, it did get a domestic DVD release years ago. Anyway, it's essential even if you don't think 22-yo Melvil Poupaud is one of the loveliest Frenchmen ever.

http://www.filmcomment.com/entry/review-a-summers-tale-eric-rohmer

i must have missed the existence us dvd release, i watched the r2 artificial eye vers and its p bad, really murky

I missed half of the Rohmer series at the National Gallery a few years ago, but my impression was of attractive young people walking around attractive parts of Paris, talking about sex but never actually getting it on. But then my favorite Rohmer is Triple Agent, so obviously I know nothing.

i wouldnt call a summers tale essential btw

yeah Summer Tale is definitely minor, I'd say. This reminds me that I so want someone to buy me
the complete blu-ray collection

http://www.amazon.fr/Coffret-Rohmer-int%C3%A9gral-pochette-Blu-ray/dp/B00E8WL6EA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403598518&sr=8-1&keywords=rohmer+l%27int%C3%A9grale
Not a bad price actually.. :)

well j.lu, none of Summer's Tale was shot in Paris, so there's that

my university library's owned a VHS for years; my intro to the lovely Melvin Poupaud.

*Melvil

weird to see a big poster for the first Oasis album in a few scenes of Summer's Tale

i want someone to agree with me that anne-laure meury is cute
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, December 30, 2004 8:52 PM (9 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i watched this today, almost a decade late but - agreed! she is really sparkling and great in it, and id put the film as a whole in prob the top third of rohmer, very captivating though w/ incred ease and naturalism

Adrian Martin on A Summer's Tale:

Gaspard is an extraordinary portrait of a modern man. I say this with the image in my mind of so many awful, politically correct, simplistic critiques of masculinity in movies of the past few decades. I watch a certain kind of analysis of manhood on screen these days—depictions of swaggering, blocked, violent, macho guys—and I feel nothing. But I predict that the character-portrait of Gaspard is one which most thoughtful, urbane guys will find genuinely unnerving. Seeing this chap on screen is like seeing some dark secret shared among men, leaked out for the whole world to see.

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/a-summers-tale-some-kind-of-liar

Available for streaming on Netflix.

"Gaspard is an extraordinary portrait of a modern man. I say this with the image in my mind of so many awful, politically correct, simplistic critiques of masculinity in movies of the past few decades. I watch a certain kind of analysis of manhood on screen these days—depictions of swaggering, blocked, violent, macho guys—and I feel nothing. But I predict that the character-portrait of Gaspard is one which most thoughtful, urbane guys will find genuinely unnerving. Seeing this chap on screen is like seeing some dark secret shared among men, leaked out for the whole world to see."

I hope this guy at least has any idea what he's talking about.

i.e. Melvil Poupaud is hot in a haughty, hostile way.

gabbneb gtfo

parsing shots from A Summer's Tale

<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/121096412"; width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>

fuck fuck

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/rohmers-guessing-gazes