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50 Comedies and Proverbs: An Interview with Eric Rohmer Fabrice Ziolkowski / 1981 From Wide Angle 5, no. 1 (1982): 62–67. Eric Rohmer’s career has been an extremely varied one: teacher, critic, editor, producer, director. François Truffaut and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze called on him in the late fifties to take over the editorship of Cahiers du Cinéma which had just felt the blow of André Bazin’s death. Rohmer, who signed his first articles in Cahiers as Maurice Schérer, led the review for some six years and finally devoted himself solely to filmmaking. He grouped his first films in a series of what he called Moral Tales. They include My Night at Maud’s, La Collectioneuse, Chloe in the Afternoon, and Claire’s Knee. His two most recent films, The Marquise of O and Perceval explore more historical subjects. The sixty-one-year-old director is lanky and speaks in a staccato rhythm which often betrays the fact that he is thinking aloud. We met on March 31, 1981, in the offices of his production company (which he owns with Barbet Schroeder) to speak about his latest film, La Femme de l’Aviateur. With this film, Rohmer returns to a limited group of characters given to lengthy discussions about their relationships. On Rohmer’s desk is a copy of the new issue of Cahiers du Cinéma which includes an article on La Femme de l’Aviateur by Pascal Bonitzer . “Is it positive?” I ask. “It’s a typical Cahiers piece,” Rohmer explains . “It’s positive, but the things they say about the film could just as well be said to be negative!” I would like to thank Mr. Rohmer for his time and cooperation in editing the final version of this interview. FZ: Why La Femme de l’Aviateur now, after two “historical” films, The Marquise of O and Perceval? Is this some kind of return to earlier concerns? fabrice ziolkowski / 1981 51 ER: You might well ask why those two films after the Moral Tales. They represented a kind of interlude, an intermission. I write very slowly and shoot the films well after having conceived the subject. After the Moral Tales, I needed a break; there was even some laziness involved. Comedies and Proverbs came to me while I was shooting Perceval. A new way of composing a story presented itself to me; a new structure became evident. The structure of the Moral Tales could have been prolonged but I limited myself to the six Tales, while I don’t think I’ll stop with Comedies and Proverbs. I can continue indefinitely inasmuch as this structure is a larger one without a specific theme. The subtitle of the film—On ne saurait penser a rien [One Cannot Think of Nothing]—is a deformed proverb. It refers to a bit of dialogue in the film: “What are you thinking about?” “Nothing.” One always thinks about something. But my proverbs will always be either false ones or those taken against the grain. I don’t believe in proverbs any more than did Alfred de Musset who also wrote Comedies and Proverbs. It’s to show that I have no moralizing intention—the opposite of the Moral Tales. The opposite of any truth is correct. There is no formula for truth; it isn’t found in assertions. But I mean to stay superficial with these films. I don’t want to make profound films. Bazin used to say that there was a profundity of the superficial in American film, but I also think that there is a superficiality to profundity. FZ: Your mention of Bazin reminds me of something Chabrol said about films with “small subjects.” In this respect La Femme de l’Aviateur seems to effect a tie with the New Wave in its early period, not only in its economy of production, but in its choice of a fictional subject—in this case a very brief action is the pretext for the entire story. ER: It’s difficult to pin down. For example, is Claire’s Knee a “small” subject ? But if we’re talking about area covered, all my films, including The Marquise of O, have been taken from short stories (Perceval is the exception ). I wrote them in that form. They’re not taken from novels. In other words, I have rather limited material which could be presented in two or three pages and which I have expanded. What really disappoints me when...

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