Eric Rohmer Integral

The multifaceted, deeply personal dramatic universe of Eric Rohmer has had an effect on cinema unlike any other. One of the founding critics of the history-making Cahiers du cinema, Rohmer began translating his written manifestos to film in the sixties, standing apart from his New Wave contemporaries, like Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, with his patented brand of gently existential, hyperarticulate character studies set against vivid seasonal landscapes.

After Eric Rohmer completed his "Six Moral Tales," and before launching into the "Comedies and Proverbs," he tackled two projects very different from anything else in his career. In the first of these, The Marquise of O, based on the novel by Heinrich von Kleist, Rohmer leaves the young intellectuals of Paris for Italy during the Napoleonic wars. During the Russian invasion, the beautiful young marquise (Edith Clever) is saved from certain assault by a handsome and dashing count (Bruno Ganz)…

Simple, delicate, and jazzy, the first of the Moral Tales shows the stirrings of what would become the Eric Rohmer style: unfussy naturalistic shooting, ironic first-person voice-over, and the image of the “unknowable” woman. A law student (played by producer and future director Barbet Schroeder) with a roving eye and a large appetite stuffs himself full of sugar cookies and pastries daily in order to garner the attentions of the pretty brunette who works in a quaint Paris bakery. But is he truly interested, or is she just a sweet diversion?

On holiday in Brittany, Parisian hairdresser Félicie has an idyllic romance that results in the birth of her daughter, Elise. Through a mix-up over her addrress, she loses touch with Elise's father, Charles, and becomes obsessed with the lost love of her life. She finds it impossible to settle with another man and wavers between two unsatisfactory relationship, while holding onto the dream that Charles may one day return. 'A Winter's Tale' is the second in Eric Rohmer's 'Tales of the Four Seasons' series and this charming and wonderfully acted love story has the compelling quality of a fairytale. (-DVD Cover)

This unique retelling of the tale of Perceval is a great and glorious anomaly in Eric Rohmer's career. Adapted by Rohmer from the 12th-century book by Chrétien de Troyes, it marries ancient theater, medieval painting, music, and prose in a beautifully stylized film narrated in couplets by a chorus of singers and musicians playing traditional instruments, and often by the actors themselves.