Rohmer, Eric

Related Category: Film and Television: Biographies

1920–, French film director and writer, b. Jean-Marie Maurice Schérer. He was a founder (1950) of La Gazette du cinéma, cowrote (1957) a study of Alfred Hitchcock, and edited (1957–63) the influential journal Cahiers du cinéma. A figure in France's cinematic “New Wave,” he made short films in the 1950s before directing his first feature, The Sign of Leo (1959), in which he initiated his typically calm and intellectual style, emphasizing the flow of conversation and ideas and portraying little physical action. In 1962 he began a cycle of six “moral tales” that explore relationships between men and women, achieving popular and critical success with My Night at Maud's (1969), Claire's Knee (1970), and Chloe in the Afternoon (1972). After two period dramas, The Marquise of O (1976) and Perceval (1978), he began another contemporary cycle, “comedies and proverbs,” highlighted by the acclaimed Pauline at the Beach (1983) and Summer (1986). Rohmer's later films include his “Four Seasons” quartet (1990–98) and the historical The Lady and the Duke (2001).

See study by C. G. Crisp (1988).