Product Description
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The multifaceted, deeply personal dramatic universe of Eric
Rohmer has had an effect on cinema unlike any other. Gently
existential, hyperarticulate character studies set against vivid
seasonal landscapes, Rohmer's audacious and wildly influential
series defined a genre. A succession of jousts between fragile
men and the women who tempt them, the Six Moral Tales unleashed
onto the film world a new voice, one that was at once sexy,
philosophical, modern, daring, nonjudgmental, and liberating.
Six-disc box set includes the films: The Bakery Girl of Monceau
(Boulangre de Monceau, La) (1963) Suzanne's Career (Carrire de
Suzanne, La ) (1963) My Night at Maud's (Ma nuit chez Maud )
(1969) La collectionneuse (Collectionneuse, La ) (1967) Claire's
Knee (Genou de Claire, Le ) (1970) Love in the Afternoon (Amour
l'aprs-midi, L') (1972)
.com
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Audiences love or hate the films of Eric Rohmer. The magnificent
Criterion set of the French director's Six Moral Tales, his first
film cycle, contains the films that first brought Rohmer to
international attention--particularly My Night at Maud's,
Claire's Knee, andLove in the Afternoon--in gorgeous film-to-dvd
transfers, accompanied by a bounty of short films and other
extras. Watching any of these films, even the short features that
begin the series (The Bakery Girl of Monceau and Suzanne's
Career), you will discover if Rohmer is for you. To some, his
examinations of social mores and the psychology of love are
absorbing, subtle, and sublime; to others, they're meandering,
talky, and flat. But even his detractors must acknowledge that
Rohmer draws out the twists of joy and anguish, brief and
ephemeral, that haunt lovers as they grope towards security and
happiness; and though his visual approach is rigorously simple,
his images--thanks to cinematographer Nestor Almendros--are
luminous.
The Bakery Girl..., only 23 minutes long, has all the basic
elements: A man, inuated with one woman, flirts with another,
all the while comforting himself with self-serving
rationalizations and a comic lack of self-knowledge. This film's
simplicity makes it more charming and satisfying than the more
awkward efforts of Rohmer's next two films, Suzanne's Career
(about a student who idolizes a callous older boy and only too
late realizes that the girl they've been mocking may have a
better grasp on life) and La collectioneusse (about a love
triangle at a countryside estate; oddly, though released two
years before the next film, it's presented as the fourth in the
series), though each has moments of in and delight. The
remaining three movies are masterpieces: In My Night at Maud's, a
Catholic engineer (the superb Jean-Louis Trintignant, Three
Colors: Red) wrestles with his morals and his desires while
spending the night with the enigmatic and alluring Maud
(Francoise Fabian, 5 x 2). Claire's Knee gently mocks Les
Liaisons Dangereuse as a man about to be married is goaded by a
female friend into pursuing an inuation with a young nubile
nymph. And the last of the series, Love in the Afternoon (also
known as Chloe in the Afternoon) follows a husband whose
unconsummated affair with an old friend almost capsizes his happy
marriage. What's most remarkable about this series is that,
though each has virtually the same plot, watching all of these
films in close succession only highlights their intricate
differences and the complex shadings of delusion and yearning.
Rohmer's work grows more fascinating the more familiar his
methods become. Some filmgoers consider "nuance" code for
"boring," but anyone who finds the collision of hearts and minds
more exciting than car ces will find Six Moral Tales
revelatory and rewarding. --Bret Fetzer
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Set Contains:
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The Criterion Collection has, as ever, put together a fantastic
bunch of essays, interviews, and ephemera to expand the viewer's
understanding. A handful of short films shows Rohmer dabbling
with techniques and ideas (one, The Curve, is from 1999 and
on video). Excerpts from French talk shows of the 1970s feature
interviews with Rohmer and his actors (including the impossibly
charming and precocious Beatrice Romand from Claire's Knee, who
went on to appear in other Rohmer films). A thoughtful commentary
by director Neil LaBute (In the Company of Men praises Rohmer's
nonjudgmental eye toward his characters and his respect for the
audience's intelligence. Also included are two booklets, one with
a series of critical essays on the films (which provide a wealth
of intriguing perspectives, and includes Rohmer's own seminal
essay For a Talking Cinema) and book of the story versions of all
the films, which reveal Rohmer's clean and vigorous prose style.
But the most valuable and engrossing extra is an hour-long
conversation between the elderly Rohmer and Barbet Schroeder, who
produced all of the Moral Tales; these old friends, both mentally
sharp and witty, ruminate on everything from accusations of being
"filmed theater" to scheduling scenes around the ripening of
cherries. Rohmer sprinkles this warm, inviting conversation with
philosophy and film theory without an ounce of pretension or
snobbery; he's everything you want a French intellectual auteur
to be. --Bret Fetzer
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