Rohmer. Rohmer is a significant figure in the French New Wave, Rohmer really picked up when frankly the best of Godard had come and gone in 1967. Rohmer’s camera style is straightforward, but the placement of objects in the frame and entire mise-en-scene is essential to him. He made the Moral Tales series in the 1960’s and 1970’s and the Comedies and Proverbs series in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Rohmer may not be a world-builder like Lynch, Leone or Wes Anderson—but you know a Rohmer film when you see it with the smart dialogue (often involving love and men and women sparring verbally), intellectual references and carefully arranged interiors (usually involving a window). For the purposes of this list he only has one top 500 film and one top 100 of the decade (My Night at Maud’s) but I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t seen some of these in 15 years (which is why there isn’t a grade for them below) but there is a remarkable uniformity in his work that just isn’t there in so many auteurs (some even above Rohmer on this list).
Best film: My Night at Maud’s
- Genuinely successful exploration and medication on fate
- Heady stuff discussing Pascal, religion
- The 3rd of Rohmer’s moral tales
- Certainly can be pointed to as a precursor to other brilliant dialogue/conversation heavy films like Malle’s My Dinner with Andre and Linklater’s Before trilogy
- I have it as a MS top 5 level film of 1969- I have a hard time going higher, despite the devastating ending, when it’s just so straightforward stylistically
total archiveable films: 10
top 100 films: 0
top 500 films: 1 (My Night at Maud’s)
top 100 films of the decade: 1 (My Night at Maud’s)
most overrated: Summer aka The Green Ray is at #348 on the TSPDT consensus list (one of three Rohmer films currently on it including My Night at Maud’s and Claire’s Knee) and I don’t have it in my top 500.
most underrated: Boyfriends and Girlfriends should be somewhere on the TSPDT top 100- and isn’t. It’s the sixth film in the Comedies and Proverbs cycles. Rohmer’s trademark Ozu-like interiors have never been better—an incredibly attractive film.
gem I want to spotlight : The Lady and the Duke. To be clear, it’s not where I’d start if I were doing a Rohmer study for the first time and certainly isn’t one of his finest overall works (see below) but it is the only Rohmer film (aside from Maud that I’ve seen in the last 5 years and its very fascinating.
- A very unique film- on one hand it is a period piece set in the 18th century—almost Masterpiece theater shot on crude video with Rohmer’s typical captivating male and female moral debate/discussion. On the other hand, the background in the exteriors sequences are from laser-projected paintings. They are stunningly beautiful when serving as long shots or establishing shots.
- mesmerizing long shots, exteriors and establishing shots
- an interesting mixture of artifice
- I wish the film were 80% these sequences and 20% interior costume period drama shot on video without much style– not the other way around
- Rohmer at 82 years old
- Starts the film with a montage of these drawings as we get the backstory.
- The interior sequences are stifling and not great—there are 20 minute stretches (at least twice) where we’re stuck inside without the tableaus
- I’m confident we don’t have an archiveable film if The Lady and the Duke were just the interiors and didn’t have the painted/drawing exterior work
- The exteriors are breathtaking- mostly as establishing shots. When mixing actors in it gets a little ugly as the artifice shows (mixed with the actors in the foreground shot on video). Long shots look fine
- Rohmer’s lead Lucy Russell is a good strong character and the debates here with the Duke are smart politics—she’s a royalist—Rohmer seems offended at how bad the manners are of the revolutionaries. Haha
stylistic innovations/traits: Most auteurs, especially the French, are influenced by Renoir but it’s hard to talk about Rohmer without talking about how from a content standpoint most of his films are about the condition of the human heart and relationships, and visually, his best work, features a tremendous use of windows (as both a framing device within the frame, and a source of natural light). Rohmer, like Ozu, cared dearly about the arrangement of objects, bodies and furniture in the frame. Rohmer made academic, dialogue-heavy films (Maud is one of the all-time great “talkers”).
top 10
- My Night at Maud’s
- Summer (The Green Ray)
- Claire’s Knee
- Boyfriends and Girlfriends
- The Marquise of O
- La Collectionneuse
- Chloe in the Afternoon
- Pauline at the Beach
- The Lady and the Duke
- A Summer’s Tale
By year and grades
| 1967 – La Collectionneuse | R |
| 1969- My Night At Maud’s | MS |
| 1971- Claire’s Knee | |
| 1972- Chloe In the Afternoon | |
| 1976- The Marquise of O | |
| 1983- Pauline at the Beach | R |
| 1986- Summer (The Green Ray) | |
| 1987- Boyfriends and Girlfriends | |
| 1996- A Summer’s Tale | R |
| 2001- The Lady and the Duke | R |
*MP is Masterpiece- top 1-3 quality of the year film
MS is Must-see- top 5-6 quality of the year film
HR is Highly Recommend- top 10 quality of the year film
R is Recommend- outside the top 10 of the year quality film but still in the archives
For you Rohmer is 147th. For me is number 1 or 2.
@ O.W. – thanks for the comment and for visiting the site. That seems high.
What’s funny is that I think he is closer to the truth than you are haha
In all seriousness, I can see why someone like Rohmer would fall so low on your list since you are primarily focused on visuals and he is someone who barely moves the camera and does virtually no editing with single takes lasting up to 10 minutes. On the other hand it fits his style and I can’t imagine how he would do what he does any differently. As you pointed out placement of objects in frames is something he excels at. It’s always symbolic and in relation to what he is trying to say with the film. His strongest traits are both verbal and non verbal communication. I don’t know who would I put ahead of him when it comes to dialogues, maybe only Kieslowski, but the point being they are so real and nuanced, he really mastered human character. Even more masterful in my opinion is his direction of actors and non verbal communication and that’s why I disagree with your pick for overrated – The Green Ray. I think it’s his best film because the way Delphine (Marie Riviere) walked, talked, her mannerisms fit her character perfectly and while you have to give the credit to the actress it’s obvious that Rohmer’s work there is what should be praised the most. The same thing with My Night at Maud’s – you get the feeling that every move (coming closer and then moving away), smile, glance they made during that famous dialogue had significance and added the new layer.
@Chief Keef– I don’t think I’m “primarily focused on the visuals”. I think I’m prioritizing cinema art as I should… on what’s cinematic.
“People say I pay too much attention to the look of a movie but for God’s sake, I’m not producing a Radio 4 Play for Today, I’m making a movie that people are going to look at.” – Ridley Scott
You basically both denied and confirmed that you are focusing on visuals in the same comment… Many critics including Ebert pay more attention to substance than form in their reviews and I think he would know a thing or two about what’s cinematic. You are free to have your own criteria and I’m aware what to expect when visiting the website, that’s why I tried to point out things in line with that such as mise-en-scene and directing of actors but I can’t agree with the exclusive nature of your response.
I apologize if I misinterpreted your views or offended you, I love your work and it’s a great website.
@Chief Keef. I’m going to take the cinematic over the uncinematic every time. That’s all I was saying. I’m not prioritizing anything–that would imply there’s some sort of choice to make on cinematic art. You can disagree with that of course- that’s your right.
@Chief Keef… and I love Ebert– He’s 100X the writer I could ever dream of being. But his system wasn’t as rigid as mine. Perhaps that’s good and you prefer that, more about content and emotion. Or perhaps it leads to top 10’s for 2007 like this one sort of just writing.. lost…
1. Juno
2. No Country for Old Men
3. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
4. Atonement
5. The Kite Runner
6. Away From Her
7. Across the Universe
8. La Vie en Rose
9. The Great Debaters
10. Into the Wild
@Drake The dispute here is on what do we consider cinematic and I definitely think there is a choice to be made.
@Chief Keef. Fair. We can agree to disagree respectively. I just think it is an evolutionary process as I had similar views years ago and view things differently now. I appreciate the dialogue and thoughts on Rohmer.
@Drake The point of my comment is not to hail Ebert, I’m actually on board with you when it comes to his lists post 2000. I don’t agree with him much in that span. The point was to show that there’s not only one and only way to view cinema. if I pulled up your and Ebert’s reviews on any film, those would be very different reviews because you are looking for different things. I hate to put the words in your mouth again, but your comments imply that Ebert is somehow not watching movies in the right way, because his criteria is significantly different than yours and you don’t think there’s a choice to be made.
@Chief Keef. Fair. Again- appreciate the dialogue and keeping it civil. Small aspects of subjectivity and differences of opinion with great art will always be there. I’m not denying that. But subjectivity is a slippery slope into total randomness. I would view Ebert’s 2007 both as using different criteria and — well— being wrong– if his goal is to recognize great cinema art. I believe There Will be Blood, Zodiac, Jesse James, 4 Months 3 weeks 2 Days are superior to The Great Debaters whether Ebert (or I) thinks so or not. And when I get things wrong (as I often do– and I may be wrong on Rohmer)– I say it.
If Ebert and I argued The Great Debaters vs. There Will Be Blood my guess is I would point to the text and observations– and he would talk about how he made him feel (he calls it “affirming and inspiring”). We’d have different purposes/objectives here. Draw your own conclusions– but one is feeling (albeit from one of the great writers on cinema we’ve ever seen–Ebert) and one is observing artistic accomplishments. I’m good with that.
@Drake You are doing it again. Framing your criteria as objective while Ebert is “all caught up in feelings”. Good writing doesn’t necessarily have to be in relation with how it made you feel. Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky are not considered great writers because they made so many people emotional. Again, you are allowed to prioritize whatever you want but calling writing uncinematic and treating it like a non-element while evaluating films is your criteria and not the objective one. It’s not a coincidence that there’s a huge discrepancy in your and TSPDT lists ranking people like Rohmer, Chaplin, Wilder whose main attribute is writing. It’s almost like other people treat it like a cinematic element just like any other. Or they are all wrong and caught up in feelings?
@Chief Keef– Yes, I believe they are wrong. They’re entitled to think what they want– but I’m entitled to think they’re wrong (and vice versa). If your main attribute is writing– yes, I believe that this is, by definition (“having qualities characteristic of motion pictures”)–uncinematic. I’d interpret part of that as “having qualities unique to motion pictures”–. I would never say or treat writing like a non-element (those are your words). But just turning a camera on to record a play or something is, I believe, not as much “cinema” as elements unique to cinema (like film style). Writing, acting, great music– all important and worthy of praise– just a little lower down the line in importance. We’ll never know I guess- but I actually think Ebert would agree with me if I challenged him on The Great Debaters vs. TWBB. I think he’d say something along the lines of, “yeah, TWBB is better but I like this more because it spoke to me personally. This is a list of my 10 favorite films of the year”– which is fine. But that’s not what I’m trying to do here on this site.
@Drake That’s a lot of people being wrong then. Just out of curiosity, do you think that Bergman or Tarkovsky are considered so great because of how their films looked or what they were about? I can assume what your personal stance would be, but what do you think people think in general? What is the main reason critics placed it so high on TSPDT list?
@Chief Keef– well my take is on the pages I have for both- so you don’t have to assume it if you want to check it out. As for the critics in general on Tarkovsky and Bergman– it varies of course. Some will talk about the content and writing, and some will talk about the visual accomplishments– and some both. But I do think many consider both auteurs to be absolute visual and stylistic masters (as I do).
Hi @Chief Keef, I don’t plan on getting into this conversation, just out of curiosity
Do you consider The apartment and Some like it hot, movies 56 and 26 of the story as TSPDT?
@Aldo No, I actually think that Some Like It Hot is one of the most overrated films on the entire list but I’m fine with the placement of The Apartment.
Forgive me for chiming in months later, but I side with Drake on this one. Screenplays are important, but if that’s all a film has going for it then you might as well read it or listen to it as an audio play – and that just isn’t cinematic. There is a difference between qualities unique to cinema, and qualities that cinema has in common with other forms of art such as music, theatre and literature.
Oh what the conversation was here with, i had forgotten what page i was on.
Interesting discussion, Unfortunately neither Chief Keef (who argues very well) nor Drake continued the conversation.
La Collectionneuse HR
My Night At Maud’s MP
Claire’s Knee MS
Chloe In the Afternoon HR
The Marquise of O R
Pauline at the Beach R
Summer (The Green Ray) MP
Boyfriends and Girlfriends —
A Tale of Springtime R
A Tale of Winter HR
A Summer’s Tale MS
Autumn Tale HR
The Lady and the Duke R