Éric Rohmer
A Biography
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- $47.99
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- $47.99
Publisher Description
The director of twenty-five films, including My Night at Maud's (1969), which was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award, and the editor in chief of Cahiers du cinéma from 1957 to 1963, Éric Rohmer set the terms by which people watched, made, and thought about cinema for decades. Such brilliance does not develop in a vacuum, and Rohmer cultivated a fascinating network of friends, colleagues, and industry contacts that kept his outlook sharp and propelled his work forward. Despite his privacy, he cared deeply about politics, religion, culture, and fostering a public appreciation of the medium he loved.
This exhaustive biography uses personal archives and interviews to enrich our knowledge of Rohmer's public achievements and lesser known interests and relations. The filmmaker kept in close communication with his contemporaries and competitors: François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, and Jacques Rivette. He held a paradoxical fascination with royalist politics, the fate of the environment, Catholicism, classical music, and the French nightclub scene, and his films were regularly featured at New York and Los Angeles film festivals. Despite an austere approach to life, Rohmer had a voracious appetite for art, culture, and intellectual debate captured vividly in this definitive volume.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Eric Rohmer (1920 2010) was one of the most distinguished filmmakers of the French new wave, but as a person, he has remained an enigma. In this remarkably dense and absorbing biography, de Baecque (Truffaut: A Biography) and Herpe (Ren Clair) attempt the difficult task of unmasking Rohmer, and they succeed with aplomb. Drawing on Rohmer's personal archives, they reveal an intensely private man, born Maurice Sherer in the central French town of Tulle, who lied about his past, assumed multiple pseudonyms, and completely concealed his career from his mother, who died without ever knowing her son was an Academy Award nominated director. While illuminating Rohmer's personal life, the authors also explore the intellectual pursuits and artistic methods that informed acclaimed films such as My Night at Maud's (1969) and Claire's Knee (1970). In less capable hands, this could be a dry read, but the authors pull off the high-wire act of appealing to both film scholars and lay readers with a combination of comprehensive research and engaging storytelling. The book will foster a renewed appreciation of a complex artist and the remarkable body of work he left behind.
