Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales
In 1950, the French publisher Gallimard rejected a manuscript of a short story collection called Moral Tales, submitted by a thirty-year-old writer. In the early sixties, the writer in question—now an influential critic and a late-flowering movie director—resolved to adapt the stories for the screen, each inspired by F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise, in which a man, committed to one woman, is tempted by another. The resulting series, which took a decade to complete, established Eric Rohmer’s international filmmaking reputation. Thrillingly intelligent portraits of self-centered, articulate, often foolish men and the women they belittle, idolize, stalk, and long for, staged with offhand visual imagination and full of electrifying, high-stakes verbal showdowns, the six Moral Tales represented an entirely new way of handling male-female relationships on screen.
None of the tales are chiding or moralizing (“It would be nonsense to believe that I am proposing a moral of some kind,” Rohmer once said of them), but they all show a distinctive willingness to expose their characters’ insecurities and pretentions—to put their male heroes through punishing educations. Taken together, these films are a kind of proving ground for Rohmer and his collaborators, including the producer Barbet Schroeder, the cinematographer Néstor Almendros, and the many vital, intellectually driven actors who found in them the space to develop new ways of playing out their characters’ debates and indecisions. They still remain the films most associated with Rohmer, and most representative of his many contradictory traits as a filmmaker: strict and yet playful, conservative and sensual, reticent but always ready to judge. Occasioned by our revivals of La collectionneuse and Love in the Afternoon, the Film Society is pleased to present Rohmer’s six Moral Tales—all newly restored—for two weeks only!
Organized by Florence Almozini. Special thanks to Les Films du Losange and Janus Films.
Thrillingly intelligent portraits of self-centered, articulate, often foolish men and the women they belittle, idolize, stalk, and long for, staged with offhand visual imagination and full of electrifying high-stakes verbal showdowns, the six Moral Tales represented an entirely new way of handling male-female relationships on screen.
Tickets on sale now. See more and save with a 3+ Film Package!
Claire’s Knee
The conversations that fill this gorgeous lakeside drama between a female novelist and an engaged male diplomat, chiefly over his infatuation with two teenage girls staying nearby, generate some of the most gripping and ambiguous dialogue—not to mention unanswered questions—in all of Rohmer’s Moral Tales.
La collectionneuse
Few of Rohmer’s male characters come off worse than the two bohemians who find themselves sharing a Riviera summer house with a sexually threatening young woman in this cunning, balmy, and bitter psychological study.
Love in the Afternoon
The last of the Moral Tales, in which a happily married businessman finds his comfortable life upset when he re-encounters his old flame, is both an unexpected left turn for the series and a grand summation of its preoccupations and themes.
My Night at Maud’s
Rohmer took years to finance and make this story of a Catholic mathematician torn between indulgence and asceticism, but it became one of his defining films—a luminous, sexy, unerringly intelligent treatment of romantic and religious indecision.
Suzanne’s Career
Rohmer’s second Moral Tale, about two college-age men who spurn what they call the “career” of an outgoing young woman they both pursue, is a trenchant, observant drama. Screening with The Bakery Girl of Monceau (Eric Rohmer, 23m).
Tickets on sale now! To begin the purchase process, log in to your account. Don’t have an account? Sign up for one today.
See more and save with our discount package!
3+ Film Package – Minimum of 3 films required. Tickets just $8 Members / $9 Students & Seniors / $11 General Public.
Note: Member complimentary tickets can be used for this series.
Not a member? Take advantage of discounted tickets, early access periods, complimentary offers year-round, and more by becoming one today! Join here.