Eric Rohmer

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Eric Rohmer, 2004

Éric Rohmer , pseudonyms Gilbert Cordier and Dirk Peters , actually Jean-Marie Maurice Schérer (born March 21, 1920 in Tulle , Département Corrèze , † January 11, 2010 in Paris ) was a French film and theater director , essayist , author , film critic and -theorist .

Life

Rohmer attended the traditional high school Lycée Henri IV in Paris in 1937 . After a brief military service in 1940, he studied classical literature at the École normal supérieure (ENS). Rohmer then worked as a teacher in Paris from 1944 to 1952 , then in Vierzon until 1955 . In 1946 he published his only novel Elisabeth under the pseudonym Gilbert Cordier , which was published in German in 2003. In June 1948 his first article appeared in the famous but short-lived La Revue du Cinéma .

In June 1951 he published his first article in the newly founded magazine Cahiers du cinéma . In 1955 he published there in five episodes the film theoretical essay Le Celluloid et le Marbre (" Celluloid and Marble "), for the first time under the pseudonym Eric Rohmer. However, he later moved away from the theoretical positions expressed at the time and refused to reprint the essay.

From 1957 he was acting on a temporary basis for the seriously ill André Bazin as editor-in-chief of the Cahiers , and from 1959 this was completely official. Through the 1950s he worked on several short films with fellow critics. In 1955, together with Claude Chabrol, he published the first book ever on Alfred Hitchcock , which was only translated into German and published by Robert Fischer in 2013 .

In 1959, Rohmer shot his first feature film In the Sign of the Lion (Le Signe du Lion) , which only found distribution in 1962. At that point, the Nouvelle Vague was not as en vogue as it had been a few years before, and the film failed in theaters. Rohmer was inspired to make this film by an experience of Paul Gégauff , a major Nouvelle Vague screenwriter and frequent co-writer of Claude Chabrol. Gégauff's personality was the inspiration for numerous characters in the films by Rohmer and other Nouvelle Vague directors.

In 1962 Rohmer founded the production company Les Films du Losange together with Barbet Schroeder . “Losange” means diamond , the company's logo. In 1963, Rohmer was ousted from the chief editor of the Cahiers by Jacques Rivette .

This allowed Rohmer to devote himself entirely to film work. As early as 1962 he opened his first film cycle Contes Moraux (Moral Tales) with the short film Die Bäckerin von Monceau , within which he made another five films by 1972: The Career of Suzanne (La Carrière de Suzanne , short film, 1963), The Collector ( La Collectioneuse , 1967), My night with Maud (Ma nuit chez Maud , 1969), Claire's knee (Le genou de Claire , 1970) and Love in the afternoon (L'Amour L'Après-midi , 1972). My night at Maud , which was delayed by three years without the support of the French film subsidy Avance sur recettes (= advance on the box office income), was a great success with the public and Rohmer's most successful film. As in almost all of his work, the central theme in this film was love .

During this time, over twenty films were made for French school television , mainly on literary and historical subjects, as well as a long television film, Le celluloid et le marbre (1966), a documentary about the Danish film director Carl Theodor Dreyer (1965) and the short film Place de l'Étoile as a contribution to the episode film Paris vu par… (1965), the other parts of which are by Jean-Daniel Pollet , Jean Rouch , Jean Douchet , Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Chabrol.

In 1972, Rohmer passed his doctorate with his dissertation L'organization de l'espace dans le Faust de Murnau at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (German as Murnaus Faustfilm by Hanser, Munich, 1980). From 1972 Rohmer had a teaching position for film directing at the University of Paris-Nanterre .

In 1976, Die Marquise von O. (La Marquise d'O ...) was created based on the novel of the same name by Heinrich von Kleist . The film was shot with German actors in the German language in Obernzenn Castle in Middle Franconia .

In 1978, Rohmer realized Perceval le Gallois based on medieval material, the Perceval novel by the French writer Chrétien de Troyes . He used extremely stylized theatrical décor and had the actors speak in medieval language. In this film, numerous actors appeared for the first time who were later to be seen frequently in Rohmer's films, such as Arielle Dombasle , Anne-Laure Meury , André Dussollier and Marie Rivière .

In 1979 Rohmer staged Das Käthchen von Heilbronn by Heinrich von Kleist at the Maison de la Culture in Nanterre . The project fell through with audiences and critics. Especially the translation made by Rohmer and the cast were criticized.

In 1981 Rohmer began with The Aviator's Wife (La femme de l'aviateur), a new six-part film cycle under the heading Comédies et proverbes (Comedies and Proverbs). The film was made with a very low budget of 125,000 euros. Every film in this series is preceded by a well-known, sometimes modified proverb as a playful motto.

Other films in this cycle are: The beautiful wedding (1982) with Béatrice Romand , Pauline on the beach (Pauline à la plage , 1982), nights of full moon (Les nuits de la pleine lune , 1984), the very strongly improvised The green glow (Le rayon vert , 1986), for which he received a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival , and My Friend's Boyfriend (1987). Outside of the cycle, Quatre aventures de Reinette et Mirabelle , a four-part episode film , was made in 1986 . For the production of this film, Rohmer founded the production company CER (Compagnie Eric Rohmer) in order to keep the financial risk of this small and very cheap film away from Les films du Losange .

In 1984 a collection of Rohmer's film reviews under the title Le gout de la beauté appeared in the book series of the Cahiers du cinéma , preceded by a lengthy interview.

In 1987 Rohmer wrote the play Le trio en mi-bémol , a comédie en sept tableaux for two people. In December 1987 the play, played by Jessica Forde and Pascal Greggory , premiered under his direction at the Théatre Renaud-Barrault in Paris. There was also a TV version of it.

In 1990 Rohmer opened his third film cycle Contes des quatre saisons (Tales of the Four Seasons) with Spring Tale (Conte de Printemps ). It followed in 1992 Winter Tale (Conte d'hiver) .

In 1993, outside the cycle, again produced by CER, L'arbre, le maire et la médiathèque ou les sept hasards , the cheapest feature film of his career. The familiar faces Arielle Dombasle, Pascal Greggory and Fabrice Luchini play in this cheerful allotria of local politics in the French provinces . The satirical aspect was a bit lost in all the word cascades.

In 1995 Les Rendez-vous de Paris followed , a three-part episode film that focuses on couples from different districts of Paris.

Rohmer also became active again as a journalist. In 1996 the essay De Mozart en Beethoven was published. Essai sur la notion de profondeur en musique at Actes Sud . Rohmer had always been interested in classical music.

The seasons cycle was continued in 1996 with the film Conte d'été , which was shot in Brittany. The autumn story followed in 1998 (Conte d'automne) .

In 2001, at the age of 81, Rohmer made his most expensive film. The Lady and the Duke (L'Anglaise et le Duc) was created entirely using digital video technology. The plot is based on the experiences of the Englishwoman Grace Elliott during the French Revolution . The painted backdrops for the outside scenes were combined with the actors' shots using a trick.

In 2004, Triple Agent had its premiere at the Berlinale . The German criticism was, however, only moderately taken with the agent story from the 1930s.

In spring 2004, the Cinémathèque française showed a complete retrospective of his works. With the appearance of the third box, the DVD edition of Rohmer's films was also completed. In March 2004 the Cahiers du cinéma dedicated a longer dossier to Rohmer. In an interview, he announced the end of his career: “En fin de compte, je n'ai rien dans mes tiroirs”. Nonetheless, Rohmer continued working: in 2005 he made the short film Le canapé rouge with Marie Rivière . In May and June 2006, the shooting of his last project Les amours d'Astrée et de Céladon based on a 17th century novel by Honoré d'Urfé took place. The film was released in French cinemas on September 5, 2007 and premiered at the 64th Venice Film Festival , where the drama was represented in the official competition but was not included in the awards.

Despite the diverse activities related to the theory and practice of film and theater, Rohmer always found the time to deal with literature, philosophy, music, architecture and urban planning. He spoke German, played the piano and was considered an excellent Balzac connoisseur, which earned him a small appearance as a Balzac specialist in Jacques Rivette's mammoth work Out One (1970).

Rohmer was married to Thérèse Barbet, born in 1929, whom he met in 1957. They had two sons: Denis Schérer (* 1958), who works as a journalist under the pseudonym René Monzat, and Laurent.

Eric Rohmer is buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris.

Pseudonyms

Regarding the choice of his pseudonym , Rohmer said: "It was a name that I simply chose, for no particular reason, simply because I liked it". With this pseudonym he signed an article in the magazine La Gazette du Cinéma for the first time in 1950 . For a while he alternated between Scherer and Rohmer before using the name Rohmer from 1955. He also used the names Gilbert Cordier and Dirk Peters.

Rohmer used the pseudonym Sébastien Erms together with the film editor Mary Stephen for the music for Winter's Tales , Summer , Rendezvous in Paris and The Tree, the Mayor and the media library . The surname is composed of the initials of the two, the first name was chosen as a homage to Johann Sebastian Bach .

Movies

(only the long feature films are listed, short films are only mentioned as parts of cycles)

"Moral Tales"

( Six Contes Moraux )

"Comedies and Proverbs"

( Comédies et proverbes )

"Tales of the Four Seasons"

( Contes des quatre seasons )

Films outside of cycles

  • 1956: The Kreutzer Sonata ( La Sonate à Kreutzer )
  • 1959: Under the sign of the lion ( Le signe du Lion )
  • 1965: Place de l'Étoile - Episode from: Paris seen from ... ( Paris vu par ... )
  • 1976: The Marquise of O. ( La Marquise d'O )
  • 1978: Perceval le gallois
  • 1986: Four adventures by Reinette and Mirabelle ( Quatre aventures de Reinette et Mirabelle )
  • 1993: The tree, the mayor and the media library ( L'arbre, le maire et la médiathèque ou les sept hasards )
  • 1994: Rendezvous in Paris ( Les rendez-vous de Paris )
  • 2001: The Lady and the Duke ( L'anglaise et le duc )
  • 2004: Triple agent
  • 2007: Les amours d'Astrée et de Céladon

Works in writing

  • Übers. Marcus Seibert: Marble and Celluloid. A position assessment. Alexander Verlag , Berlin 2017 ISBN 9783954380725
  • as Gilbert Cordier: Elisabeth. Gallimard, Paris 1946.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Other sources speak of Maurice Henri Joseph Schérer .
  2. ↑ one can also find other years of birth (1921, 1923 and 1928), days (April 4, December 1) and places ( Nancy , Nuits-les-Saulniers)
  3. ↑ He saved love for the cinema (Die Zeit)
  4. ↑ German: The taste of the beautiful. Publishing house of the authors, Frankfurt / M., 2000.
  5. ^ German: From Mozart to Beethoven , Residenz-Verlag, Salzburg, 1997.
  6. ↑ s. also the facsimile of a handwritten letter from November 8, 1972 to the Austrian Film Museum written by Rohmer in German, published in: Viennale (Ed.): Retrospective Eric Rohmer , pages 63 ff.
  7. ↑ s. Stefan Flach: Eric Rohmer. In: Viennale (Ed.): Retrospective Eric Rohmer , p. 174.
  8. ↑ s. Stefan Flach: Eric Rohmer. In: Viennale (ed.): Retrospective Eric Rohmer. P. 175.
  9. ↑ Eric Rohmer in the New York Times Magazine, 1971: "It was a name I chose just like that, for no particular reason, only because I liked it".
  10. ↑ Noël Herpe (ed.): Rohmer et les autres. Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2007 p. 243 online
  11. ^ In 1955 Rohmer wrote a five-part series in the Cahiers du Cinéma with the title "Celluloid and Marble". He determined the location of the "young art" of film in relation to literature, painting and music and declared film to be the defining art of our time. Rohmer called these essays his film-theoretical "sum", his life's work. The book also contains five conversations from 2009 that Rohmer's biographers Noël Herpe and Philippe Fauvel had with Rohmer about these texts. These last interviews show him as an alert mind ironic about his life span.
personal data
SURNAME Rohmer, Eric
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cordier, Gilbert (pseudonym); Peters, Dirk (pseudonym); Schérer, Jean-Marie Maurice (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French film and theater director, essayist, author, film critic and theorist
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Tulle , Corrèze department
DATE OF DEATH January 11, 2010
Place of death Paris