Eric Rohmer: Interviews

Moral Tales: Eric Rohmer Reviewed and Interviewed

28 Moral Tales: Eric Rohmer Reviewed and Interviewed Beverly Walker / 1973 From Women and Film 1, no. 3–4 (1973): 15–22. When My Night at Maud’s hit the film scene four years ago, I breathed a sigh of relief that someone had, at last, created a character with whom I could readily identify. The fascinating Maud was perfect: she was educated and self-supporting (a doctor by profession). She enjoyed being a mother to her daughter but made no apologies for her divorcee status. Her beauty and sex appeal were not surface artifice, manufactured by Hollywood: they were totally integral to her character and personality. No passive “sex object,” she was perfectly capable of letting a man know she desired him. Brilliantly played by Françoise Fabian, Maud captivated everybody—men as well as women. The filmmaker, an unknown Frenchman named Eric Rohmer, had done something most unusual: he had presented an unorthodox woman without any dark insinuations about her character. She stood alone in counterpoint to a conventional married couple. And Rohmer showed his bias: marriage was portrayed as a refuge for silly, frightened people. The plot was simple: An engineer (Jean-Louis Trintignant) meets, by chance, Maud. Forced by a snow storm to spend the night in her apartment , they pass the night discussing their conflicting philosophies of life. She attempts to seduce him but he explains that he has already seen in church a girl he intends to marry. In mind he has committed himself to her and must, therefore, remain faithful. They go their separate ways and he eventually contrives to meet the girl—a blonde-haired student (Marie-Christine Barrault) who, like himself, is Catholic. They marry and have children. A few years pass. A brief epilogue shows an accidental beverly walker / 1973 29 encounter between Maud and her happy family. A sharp glance between the two women indicates that the wife is the student with whom Maud’s first husband was having an affair when their marriage ended. Their mouths are closed, however, and the husband will never know. He bids Maud adieu and scampers down the beach to build sandcastles with his kids. The real substance of the film lay in its subtle ambience of characterization and mood. Maud was free and open and ready to accept life as it happened. The engineer lived according to a preconceived outline, a blend of tradition and Catholicism. The wife, laden with guilt over her affair, saw marriage as an escape from temptation. (And, perhaps, atonement for her sins?) My enthusiasm for My Night at Maud’s lasted quite awhile. Being a maverick was hard enough without constant reminders from movies and TV that a woman is condemned if she doesn’t go down the route of marriage and children. Eric Rohmer became my hero. Then a friend, a film critic and essayist, planted a seed of doubt. The scenario went something like this: HE: You’re crazy to think that director is against marriage. You’ve misread the film. ME: I don’t see how. Maud is clearly superior to that uptight married couple. Imagine a man picking out his wife at Mass, the way a horse breeder might choose a fine mare from a line-up. Absurd. The man cuts himself off from life’s possibilities by playing it so safe whereas Maud participates in all of life’s possibilities. HE: You’re forgetting the epilogue. Maud stands there all alone, confessing that things haven’t been so great. The engineer is happy as a lark with his wife and kids. ME: No, you’ve got it wrong! Maud has courage. She’s so secure she can admit mistakes without feeling annihilated. And at least she knows she’s unhappy. The engineer is so cut off from his feelings that he wouldn’t recognize dissatisfaction in himself or in his wife. How could he experience joy? He’s fixed things so that only a catastrophe could shake his boat. And his smugness is shown to be foolish by the fact that even the people around him protect him from reality. Neither Maud nor his own wife will ever reveal his wife’s contribution to the breakup of Maud’s marriage. HE: (Patience exhausted.) I know the man. He’s a devout Catholic who is 30 eric rohmer: inter views absolutely devoted to his wife and children. He lives a monastic...