Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales
The multifaceted, deeply personal work of Eric Rohmer has had an effect on cinema unlike any other. One of the founding critics of the history-making Cahiers du cinéma, Rohmer began translating his written manifestos to film in the 1960s, standing apart from his New Wave contemporaries with his patented brand of gently existential, hyperarticulate character studies set against vivid seasonal landscapes. This near genre unto itself was established with the audacious and wildly influential series Six Moral Tales. A succession of encounters between fragile men and the women who tempt them, Six Moral Tales unleashed on the film world a new voice, one that was at once sexy, philosophical, modern, daring, nonjudgmental, and liberating.
The Bakery Girl of Monceau (1963)
01 January, 1963
Early new wave effort from Rohmer, which was the first of his six moral tales. It concerns a young man who approaches a girl in the street, but after several days without seeing her again, he becomes involved with the girl in the local bakery. Eventually, he has to choose between them when he arranges dates with them on the same day.
My Night at Maud's (1969)
04 June, 1969
The Catholic Jean-Louis runs into an old friend, the Marxist Vidal, in Clermont-Ferrand around Christmas. Vidal introduces Jean-Louis to the modestly libertine, recently divorced Maud and the three engage in conversation on religion, atheism, love, morality and Blaise Pascal's life and writings on philosophy, faith and mathematics. Jean-Louis ends up spending a night at Maud's. Jean-Louis' Catholic views on marriage, fidelity and obligation make his situation a dilemma, as he has already, at the very beginning of the film, proclaimed his love for a young woman whom, however, he has never yet spoken to.
Love in the Afternoon (1972)
01 September, 1972
The last of Rohmer's Six Moral Tales. Frederic leads a bourgeois life; he is a partner in a small Paris office and is happily married to Helene, a teacher expecting her second child. In the afternoons, Frederic daydreams about other women, but has no intention of taking any action. One day, Chloe, who had been a mistress of an old friend, begins dropping by his office. They meet as friends, irregularly in the afternoons, till eventually Chloe decides to seduce Frederic, causing him a moral dilemma.
La Collectionneuse (1967)
02 March, 1967
A bombastic, womanizing art dealer and his painter friend go to a seventeenth-century villa on the Riviera for a relaxing summer getaway. But their idyll is disturbed by the presence of the bohemian Haydée, accused of being a “collector” of men.
Claire's Knee (1970)
11 December, 1970
On the eve of his wedding, on holiday on the Lake Annecy shore, a career diplomat visits an old acquaintance, perhaps a former girlfriend. Through her he meets an intense teenager, Laura, and then lusts after her sister, Claire. Whilst Laura attempts to flirt with him, his fantasy becomes focused on wanting to caress Claire's knee.
Suzanne’s Career (1963)
01 February, 1963
In the second of Rohmer's moral tales, he examines the relationship between two friends and a girl who at first appears easily exploited. It is a complex tale of feelings and misconceptions, acted out within the head of the main character, as part of Rohmer's attempt to more easily simulate the mindscape quality of literature within a film.