History Creator / EricRohmer

Éric Rohmer (born Maurice Henri Joseph Schérer or Jean Marie Maurice Schérer, March 21, 1920 – January 11, 2010) was a French filmmaker and member of the UsefulNotes/FrenchNewWave.

His low-budget, low-key, talky style has been quietly influential on independent film for decades. Individual filmmakers as varied as Creator/WoodyAllen and Creator/RichardLinklater have adopted many of his techniques, and movements like UsefulNotes/Dogme95 and Mumblecore take numerous cues from his work (Creator/GretaGerwig specifically cited him as an influence on ''Film/LadyBird'').

* ProductionPosse: [[invoked]] His most important frequent collaborators were producer Barbet Schroeder, cinematographer Néstor Almendros, editor Mary Stephen, actress Béatrice Romand and actors Pascal Greggory and Fabrice Luchini.

** Deliberately invoked with ''Film/ATaleOfWinter'', which has the same French title as Creator/WilliamShakespeare's ''Theatre/TheWintersTale'' (''Conte d'hiver''), and a performance of the play figures into the film's plot.

** ''The Green Ray'' (1986)

* ProductionPosse: [[invoked]] His most important frequent collaborators were producer Barbet Schroeder, cinematographer Néstor Almendros, editor Mary Stephen, actress Béatrice Romand and actor Pascal Greggory.

* NomDePlume: He took the name Éric Rohmer from director Creator/ErichVonStroheim and author Sax Rohmer because he felt his deeply religious family would disapprove of his film career. Allegedly his mother died without knowing that her son was a world-renowned director.

* ProductionPosse: [[invoked]] His most important frequent collaborators were producer Barbet Schroeder, cinematographer Néstor Almendros, actress Béatrice Romand and actor Pascal Greggory.

** ''A Tale of Winter'' (1992)

** ''[[Film/FullMoonInParis Full Moon in Paris]]''(1984)

** ''Film/FullMoonInParis'' (1984)

** ''Full Moon in Paris'' (1984)

* HeAlsoDid: As mentioned above, he started out as a film critic and scholar, and his writing in that realm is still highly regarded. He's credited with the being the first film expert to fully appreciate Creator/AlfredHitchcock as an artist.

* NoBudget: His austere style meant he usually didn't need to spend a whole lot on his films.
* ProductionPosse: His most important frequent collaborators were producer Barbet Schroeder, cinematographer Néstor Almendros, actress Béatrice Romand and actor Pascal Greggory.

* SimilarlyNamedWorks:

** ''A Summer's Tale'' (1996)

** ''A Tale of Summer'' (1996)
** ''A Tale of Autumn'' (1998)

* ''Triple Agent'' (2004)

* ''Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle'' (1987)

* ''Six Moral Tales'':

** ''The Bakery Girl of Monceau'' (1962--short)
** ''Suzanne's Career'' (1963--featurette)
** ''La Collectionneuse'' aka ''The Collector'' (1967)

** ''Claire's Knee'' (1970)
** ''L'Amour l'après-midi'' aka ''Love in the Afternoon'', ''Chloe in the Afternoon'' (1972)

* UnreliableNarrator [=/=] UnreliableVoiceover: Rohmer stated that he wasn't really interested in depicting a story the way it happened, but the way the protagonist remembers it as he/she is recounting the tale. One way he liked to examine this is by having the protagonist do a voiceover narration, but the narration often veers into [[FauxlosophicNarration Fauxlosophic]] mode, with the narrator clearly either misinterpreting what was actually happening or making transparently flimsy rationalizations for their behavior.
[[/index]]

[[index]]

!!Tropes
* AllMenArePerverts [=/=] AllWomenAreLustful: The classic Rohmer formula is to take a somewhat repressed man who tries to hide his heavy obsession with women, have an attractive woman who's very confident and frank about her sexuality enter his life, then let the sparks fly.
* {{Dramedy}}: His best films have a good balance of laughs and poignancy.
* HeAlsoDid: As mentioned above, he started out as a film critic and scholar, and his writing in that realm is still highly regarded. He's credited with the being the first film expert to fully appreciate Creator/AlfredHitchcock as an artist.
* MsFanservice: You can count on at least one really stunning woman in a Rohmer film, and often several, and usually in flattering outfits.
* MultipleChoicePast: While not exactly a ReclusiveArtist, he was very protective of his personal life. Many facts about him (such as his real name) aren't known for certain.
* NomDePlume: He took the name Éric Rohmer from director Creator/ErichVonStroheim and author Sax Rohmer because he felt his deeply religious family would disapprove of his film career. Allegedly his mother died without knowing that her son was a world-renowned director.
* NoBudget: His austere style meant he usually didn't need to spend a whole lot on his films.
* ProductionPosse: His most important frequent collaborators were producer Barbet Schroeder, cinematographer Néstor Almendros, actress Béatrice Romand and actor Pascal Greggory.
* SceneryPorn: Often set his films in picturesque French locations, like the Riviera or the Alps, but the scenery typically takes a back seat to the characters and dialogue.
* SignatureStyle: Dramedies about young people in nature who have long conversations about sex, love, religion, philosophy, etc. His films also avoid techniques like close-ups and soundtrack music. His films usually feature many scenes of the characters travelling between places, in order to emphasize how much travelling we do in our daily lives. He also divides his films into groups like the Six Moral Tales or the Tales of the Four Seasons.
* SimilarlyNamedWorks:
** 1967's ''La Collectionneuse'' usually has an UntranslatedTitle in English-speaking countries to avoid confusion with other works called ''The Collector'' (particularly the [[Literature/TheCollector John Fowles novel]] and its 1965 film adaptation).
** 1972's ''L'Amour l'après-midi'' translates as "love in the afternoon", but since there was already a [[Film/LoveInTheAfternoon famous movie]] with that title, the English language release was called ''Chloe in the Afternoon'', continuing the pattern from his last two films of having a woman's name in the title (''My Night at Maud's'', ''Claire's Knee'').
* SliceOfLife: His plots tend to be very simple stories about a small group of people and their interactions with one another, and will often stop entirely to focus on conversations the characters have, most famously the nearly 40 minute discussion about Pascal's Wager and morality in ''My Night at Maud's''.
* SpeechCentricWork: Rohmer's films are very dialogue driven.
* UnreliableNarrator [=/=] UnreliableVoiceover: Rohmer stated that he wasn't really interested in depicting a story the way it happened, but the way the protagonist remembers it as he/she is recounting the tale. One way he liked to examine this is by having the protagonist do a voiceover narration, but the narration often veers into [[FauxlosophicNarration Fauxlosophic]] mode, with the narrator clearly either misinterpreting what was actually happening or making transparently flimsy rationalizations for their behavior.

----

* Sign of Leo (1959)
* The Collector (1967)
* ''Film/MyNightAtMauds'' (1969)
* Claire's Knee (1970)
* Love in the Afternoon (1972)
* The Marquise of O... (1976)
* Perceval le Gallois (1978)
* Catherine de Heilbronn (1980)
* The Aviator's Wife (1981)
* A Good Marriage (1982)
* ''Film/PaulineAtTheBeach''
* Full Moon in Paris (1984)
* The Green Ray (1986)
* My Girlfriend's Boyfriend (1987)
* Le trio en si bémol (1987)
* Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (1987)
* A Tale of Springtime (1990)
* A Tale of Winter (1992)
* The Tree, The Mayor, and the Mediatheque (1993)
* Rendezvous in Paris (1995)
* A Tale of Summer (1996)
* A Tale of Autumn (1998)
* The Lady And The Duke (2001)
* Triple Agent (2004)
* Romance of Astree and Celadon (2007)

* Romance of Astree and Celadon (2007)

* My Night at Maud's (1969)

* Pauline at the Beach

* UnreliableNarrator [=/=] UnreliableVoiceover: Rohmer stated that he wasn't really interested in depicting a story the way it happened, but the way the protagonist remembers it as he/she is recounting the tale. One way he liked to examine this is by having the protagonist do a voiceover narration, but the narration often veers into [[FauxlosophicNarration Fauxlosophic]] mode, with the narrator clearly either misinterpreting what was actually happening or making transparently flimsy rationalizations for their behavior.