1306 - Suzanne's Career

Eric Rohmer is dead. Not that he was a young man snuffed out in his prime, but still. Years ago I bought the "Six Moral Tales" Criterion box-set, and so in honor of the man I've vowed to finally finish watching the rest of the films in it, as well as the supplemental material which includes several of Rohmer's short films. I'm flirting with the idea of trying to do a short this spring/summer, just to keep myself sharp and experiment with a few more directing muscles.

For those of you who don't know Rohmer, he's worth looking into. I could go into great detail myself, but I'll show you a quote from Harry Knowles at ain't-it-cool that pretty much sums it up:

No filmmaker has done more to betray the male gender than Eric Rohmer. Consider this an indirect admission that, yes, we really are as silly, obsessed, weak-willed and, if granted enough independence, self-destructive as the protagonists in all of the director’s pictures, but, specifically, the fools and cads in his first cinematic cycle, Six Moral Tales. Nothing is good enough, the women we most desire are never the ones we’re with, and our timing is generally awful. The only thing that separates the dimmest from the brightest among us is our degree of honesty – with our lovers and ourselves – and the quality of our inner monologue; so, while Rohmer has scandalously exposed his fellow man as a hopeless, helpless hypocrite, at least he’s had the common courtesy to make us all sound sparklingly literate!

That Rohmer stages these minor tragedies of desire with seemingly intelligent men only elevates the squirm factor; the transgressions and general foolishness grow more despicable the more they’re rationalized. This is what we do every day, and it’s only societal mores and religious beliefs that keep us from acting on instinct at any given moment. Rohmer’s triumph is that he has his men deal with the ubiquitous nearness of sin without allowing them to commit the deed, because, contrary to what Hollywood might tell you, that’s how it plays out most of the time.

Women, if you’re looking for comfort, that’s going to have to suffice. Welcome to our mind, and, please, watch your step.

This film, Suzanne's Career, isn't the best of Rohmer's work that I've seen, but it's still quite interesting to watch. The performances are bland, but the ideas are grand and so it helps to elevate them. But to that end the people, and moments, feel real and honest. Unfortunately for us, we know these characters. Hell, we are some of them.

I look forward to more of Rohmer, and I want to try and dig into some of the more recent stuff he did to see what he got up to in his later years.