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Éric Rohmer (born Jean-Marie Maurice Scherer, April 4, 1920, Nancy, France) is a French film director. He is regarded as a key figure in the post-war New Wave cinema and is a former editor of influential French film journal Cahiers du cinéma.

Scherer fashioned his pseudonym from the names of two famous artists: director Erich von Stroheim and writer Sax Rohmer, author of the Fu Manchu series.

Rohmer was the last of the French New Wave directors to become established, working as the editor of the Cahiers du cinéma periodical from 1957 to 1963, while most of his Cahiers colleagues (among them Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut) were making their name in international cinema.

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Early career

His beginnings as a film director were halting, not completing his first feature, Le signe du lion until 1959, and making little impact with it.

It was with his cycle of films entitled Six Moral Tales that his career began to take off. The first, La boulangère de Monceau lasts 20 minutes, the second 60 minutes, the rest are feature-length. Each tale follows the same basic story, inspired by F.W. Murnau's Sunrise — a man, married or otherwise committed to a woman, is tempted by a second woman, but ultimately resists the temptation. It was the third in the series (but the fourth to be filmed), Ma nuit chez Maud (1969) that brought international recognition and the following film, Le genou de Claire, secured it.

Later professional life

Rohmer's films invariably concentrate on intelligent, articulate protagonists who nevertheless frequently fail to own up to their real desires and it is the contrast between what they say and what they do that fuels much of the drama in his films.

Following the Moral Tales, Rohmer made two period films — Die Marquise von O... (1976) from a novella by Heinrich von Kleist and Perceval le Gallois (1978), based on a 12th century manuscript by Chrétien de Troyes. A highly literary man, Rohmer's films frequently refer to ideas and themes in plays and novels, such as references to Jules Verne (in The Green Ray), Shakespeare (in A Winter's Tale) and Pascal's Wager (in Ma nuit chez Maud).

He then embarked on a second series, the Comedies and Proverbs, each one based on a different proverb. This was followed by a third series in the 1990s: Tales of the Four Seasons. Recently Rohmer, now well into his 80s, has turned once again to period drama with The Lady And The Duke and Triple Agent.

Selected filmography

Six Moral Tales:

Comedies and Proverbs:

  • La Femme de l'aviateur / The Aviator's Wife (1981) — Proverb: "It is impossible to think about nothing."
  • Le Beau mariage / A Good Marriage (1982) — Proverb: "Can anyone refrain from building castles in Spain?"
  • Pauline à la plage / Pauline At The Beach (1983) — Proverb: "He who talks too much will hurt himself."
  • Les Nuits de la pleine lune / Full Moon In Paris (1984) — Proverb: "He who has two women loses his soul, he who has two houses loses his mind."
  • Le Rayon vert / The Green Ray / Summer (1986)
  • L'Ami de mon amie / My Girlfriend's Boyfriend / Boyfriends And Girlfriends (1987) — Proverb: "My friends' friends are my friends."

Tales of the Four Seasons:

Other, non-series films:

Other films by Éric Rohmer

Fiction films

Films for television or school programs

External links

1920 births | Living people | Film theory | French film directors | Roman Catholics

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