Two a penny

.Eric Rohmer, a pioneer of French New Wave cinema, has died aged 89.
In a career spanning half a century, Rohmer made some 50 films, first gaining international acclaim for Ma Nuit Chez Maud (My Night At Maud’s) which was nominated for an Oscar for best screenplay in 1969.
Le Genou De Claire (Claire’s Knee) of 1970 won the San Sebastian Film Festival top honour, while L’Amour l’Apres-Midi (Love In The Afternoon) two years later secured Rohmer’s position as a master of the intense portrayal of the cerebral and the sensual.
Rohmer was born Jean-Marie Maurice Scherer in Nancy, eastern France, in 1920.
His work divided the film world – critics were quick to denounce his movies as desperately tedious, while his fans hailed him as an aesthete who laid bare the human soul.
He was later editor-in-chief of Cahiers Du Cinema – the bible of the New Wave movement, which shunned the constraints of classical cinema to create a more edgy, improvised style. .
Regarded by many as a conservative, Rohmer did not follow fashion.
“[He makes] films that deal with foibles and relationships of realistic if self-absorbed people.
“Rohmer’s films never contain any obvious attention-getting devices such as violence, unusual camera angles or even musical scores,” wrote biographer Terry Ballard.
Gene Hackman as a character in the 1975 film Night Moves says of Rohmer: “I saw one of his films once.”
His movies were not to all tastes.”
Rohmer made his first feature film, Le Signe Du Lion (The Sign Of Leo), in 1959. It was like watching paint dry.
He did not become famous for a further 10 years, but worked tirelessly during this period.
He did not become famous for a further 10 years, but worked tirelessly during this period.
“You can say that my work is closer to the novel – to a certain classic style of novel which the cinema is now taking over – than to other forms of entertainment, like the theatre.
“What I call a ‘conte moral’ is not a tale with a moral, but a story which deals less with what people do than with what is going on in their minds while they are doing it,” Rohmer wrote in 1971.
A man with a reputation for zealously guarding his privacy, Rohmer started his third series of films at the age of 70, naming them after the four seasons and beginning with Conte De Printemps (A Tale Of Springtime).”
In the 1980s, Rohmer began his second series of films under the banner Comedies And Proverbs which were supposed to be lighter in tone to the earlier “literary” movies.
Rohmer received a coveted Golden Lion for his life achievements at the Venice Film Festival in 2001.
In 1999, his Conte D’Automne (Autumn Tale) won him strong critical success at the age of 79.
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His last movie as director, Les Amours D’Astree Et De Celadon (Romance Of Astree And Celadon), came out in 2007