Éric Rohmer: A Biography IV

Rohmer's filmmaking career was extremely long, with his first major film releasing in 1967 and his last in 2007. It is confusing to follow his development, but, to some extent, he followed a pattern in which his early theme in the late 1960's was relationships between men and women, his middle theme in the late 1970's was more complex dramas set in Napoleonic and Medieval times, and in the 1980's he returned to his 1960's themes. Part of the confusion has to do with the fact that none of his films were made in an industrial environment like Hollywood, and Rohmer's development as a filmmaker at his own pace reflects a transition from amateurism to professionalism without much external assistance. During most of his career, his films were made under extremely spartan conditions that would not be tolerated by most actors or cinematographers. He did all of the writing and casting himself and was generally incapable of raising the funds necessary for larger productions. I think that this was largely related to his introverted personality and penny-pinching habits. He seemed to prefer to do everything on a modest scale. Toward the end of his career, he had name recognition and a large assortment of supporters who had worked with him over the years, and, to some extent, his late films may be construed as better-made representations of his earlier films, though, because he was much older then, there are more middle-aged characters.

Far into the book, the authors are beginning to make more interesting comments about Rohmer. In the making of The Green Ray (1986), Rohmer hired Françoise Etchegaray as a supervisor. Under a tenuous agreement, his frugal tendencies precipitated a reaction:

These temporary conditions did not fail to create certain tensions. Especially when Rohmer, at the end of a lunch with volunteers playing secondary roles, quibbled about paying for their meals and ended up leaving the restaurant after furiously throwing the bill on the table. The next day, Françoise threatened to abandon everything if he persisted in acting like an ill-tempered miser.

She was the first to dare stand up to him, and that did not necessarily displease him. She was the first, especially since Barbet Schroeder with a willingness more complete than Marie Bouteloup's, to go to great lengths to realize the great Rohmerian dream: working from day to day, with the means at hand, without worrying about the constraints of traditional production (assistant, scriptwriter, work schedule) and freely adapting to circumstances.

There is also discussion as to whether Rohmer was politically incorrect. On the surface, he appears to have been: minorities are not featured in his films, women may seem to behave subserviently, and all of the characters belong to the bourgeoisie. The only thing that he seemed to have going for him was an interest in environmentalism. From my perspective, he had a right to explore in his films life as it was while he was growing up. As someone who grew up far from Paris and was born in 1920, I think that he is allowed to have some 19th century characteristics. For the most part he was apolitical, and his brother, René, described him as "a ferociously independent anarchist." To this I would add that, although some of the men in his films might be described as male chauvinist pigs, the women stand up to them quite well. Rohmer's women are often more thoughtful, observant and articulate than the men, who sometimes seem a little out of touch with reality, especially in his early films. I particularly like A Summer's Tale (1996) in which three young women and one young man have encounters in which they are all on equal footing. If you watch many Rohmer films, it becomes obvious that he absolutely adored women, and they are the centerpieces of his films. He is never attempting to transform them into dutiful housewives.

I am nearing the end of the book and will make one more post.