Rohmer's A Tale of Summer (Conte d'ete)

[Howard Schumann]

A TALE OF SUMMER (Conte d'ete)

Directed by Eric Rohmer (1996)

Eric Rohmer's characters are often irritating and insufferable, yet they can likewise be charming and utterly irresistible. In A Tale of Summer, Gaspard (Melvil Poupaud) acts like a grown up teenager who likes to play at love but is unwilling to make commitments, finding himself unable to honestly express his feelings to three women he meets at a seaside resort. Like so many Rohmer films, the story takes place at a time when the characters have nothing to do but meet and talk and idle the days away, and you can be certain there is plenty of talk. Gaspar is a tall, slender young guitar player who comes to Brittany on vacation from his job as a mathematician and spends time by himself composing and playing music.

Pausing long enough to get out and see the town, Gaspar meets Margot (Amanda Langlet) an ethnologist working in a local restaurant. He develops a relationship with Margot but it is all very platonic as Margot is waiting for her boyfriend to return from the Peace Corps and Gaspard says that he is waiting for the arrival of his girl friend Lena, vacationing with her cousins in Spain. Margot and Gaspard take long walks in the French countryside and engage in witty and intelligent conversation about relationships, jealousy, and sex and they seem well suited for each other but each avoids an emotional connection. At Margot's suggestion Gaspar meets another girl, Solene (Gwenaelle Simon), at a disco and they share a love for music but Solene becomes demanding when Gaspar is reluctant to make a commitment to take her on a trip to a nearby island.

His ego is strengthened by Solene's attraction to him, but when Lena finally shows up, he must deal with her mercurial temperament, especially when she tells him that he is not worthy of her. Eventually, the young man digs himself quite a hole as he makes the same promise to all three women and is fearful of confronting them to explain. A Tale of Summer is one of Rohmer's lighter films and I found it to be a lovely and engaging way to spend two hours. Though his characters have plenty of flaws that are all too apparent, Rohmer does not judge or evaluate them but accepts them the way that they are -- so, for all their faults, I suppose we should as well.

GRADE: B+

[Chris Knipp]

I'm glad you chose to write about this one, Howard, and glad that you liked it. Your opening statement is fair enough: there's a need to acknowledge that the characters in Rohmer's films are at best rather selfish, but that they'e also charming.

Poupard has now been in a number of films and will shortly be seen in the US in Ozon's new one. This is my favorite of the later Rohmers and I think is a classic example of the embarrasment of riches a decent looking young man at a summer resort in a more genteel world, such as this one of Brittany ten years ago, might face; or, it might be more accurate to say this is what it was like in Rohmer's or my day. Anyway considering romantic possi blities is the director's chief topic, and the moral questions that arise when you're playing the field. The game is in the pursuit, not in the resolution, and so Gaspard is neatly able to extricate himself at the end. Nice the way ethnographic notes and some songs are introduced. You didn't mention that Gaspard is also a song writer who travels with a guitar; and that the three girls all represent different types. Margot is the sweet, sincere type. She's nicer than the sexy Solene and the imperious Lena, but Gaspard is drawn to them more, it seems, because they seem to be bigger trophies. But he has had the most natural and complete communication with Margot. And they are well cast for these different roles. I wouldn't say Margot's boyfriend is in the Peace Corps, since this is France but I forget what the deal was in French. The French are more articulate about matters of the heart than we are, or at least that has been my experience, and that's what makes Rohmer's talky films so sexy and fun. As far as I know there's only one of his films that has a scene with actual intercourse going on in it, and that's the one with the full moon in the title--Les nuits de la pleine lune ('84). It's worth nothing that Rohmer is 86 now and was 76 when he made Conte d’été. His maintenance of consistent quality is one of his remarkable features.

Rohmer gives his films the effect of being casual and improvised, and his actors have the quality of non-actors, not that they're clumsy, but they feel like they're just being themselves. But the 33-year-old Melvil Poupard has been in an astonishing 46 films, half of them before he was in Conte d’été and half since. I like the fact that Rohmer's films are no-frills, and yet that the people and the settings are very attractive. This is exactly the opposite of the artificiality of studio/Hollywood productions and indicates that the French know how to live gracefully, but of course this effect is achieved with artifice and Rohmer's productions aren't amateur in any way shape or form but most cunningly contrived by a master hand.

[Howard Schumann]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
You didn't mention that Gaspard is also a song writer who travels with a guitar Well not exactly, but I did say "Gaspar is a tall, slender young guitar player who comes to Brittany on vacation from his job as a mathematician and spends time by himself composing and playing music." I did like the songs in the film especially Santyanno is one of my favorites.

It is amazing how a man in his 70s could have such a feel for the way young people think and feel. Most films about young people show them fully formed and full of confidence but of course the reality is much closer to how Rohmer portrays them: insecure, indecisive, and anxious about closeness.

The film does get a bit tedious with Gaspard's indecisiveness but as Rohmer says, his films are not so much about what people do, but about what's going on in their mind when they do it.

[Chris Knipp]

Forgive my careless reading. That sentence covers it. However it is an important part of the film that he composes a song which he sings for the old sailor and Margot.

Rohmer is a a marvel of youthfulness and has been for a long time already.

I think it is not so tedious really. We are too used to quick soutions. Much of life is living with an unresolvable ambivalence, and especially in a young man this is often true. He is trying to decide who he wants to be; it's not easy. And this is also if not the war at least the sparring between the sexes, where there are manty miscues and misread cues.

[oscar jubis]

Two things come to mind immediately when I hear Rohmer's name:
1) the importance he imparts to small gestures and statements. Rohmer really bought into Griffith's assertion that one of the unique qualities of the movie camera was its ability to "photograph thought".
2) He pioneered a method of creating a film by allowing the actors to improvise within a blueprint of sketchy situations. Rohmer's films are all the proof needed by emerging filmmakers that this is a viable way to create dramatic fiction. Sometimes, depending on the nature of the project, Rohmer has adhered more strictly to a written script. But almost every film he directed during the last 15 years of the 20th century is improvised to a significant extent. My favorite of these is Boyfriends and Girlfriends (L'ami de mon ami).

After his "Tales of the Four Seasons", Rohmer has gone on a different direction. Lady and the Duke, which I liked very much, and Triple Agent (2004), the sole Rohmer I dislike, are period films which would not be instantly recognized as Rohmer pictures.

Besides Boyfriends and Girlfriends, my favorites are My Night at Maud's, Claire's Knee, and his oddest film: Perceval (a faithful adaptation of a 12th century epic poem about a knight's adventures shot in a flat, two-dimensional style that recalls the art of that epoch).

[Chris Knipp]

Those are normal reactions. Most people like the early ones, My Night at Maud's and Claire's Knee, and view them as classic. My Night at Maud's especiallly gains depth through the philosophical/religious discussion, but his work acquires still further interest as an artistic "œuvre" through the interrelationships of the whole, every single one of his films, to the theme of the sexes pursuied through civilized conversation and repeated meetings among uusually two or three people, with the three exceptions you mention, including the odd Percival. The degree of improvisation is a somewhat moot point. The conversations actually are highly artificial, but that doesn't mean they are all written out. He has his own style, and it is a highly French one of flirtatious yet analyitical discussion.


[Howard]
I'd like to watch all of Rohmer's Four Seasons.I haven't seen his films since Conte d’été, except for L'Anglaise et le duc. But of course I will when I can.

I like Boyfriends and Girlfriends (L'ami de mon ami) too but my favorite of the later ones currently is Conte d’été, and I'm interested to see "Gaspard" in Ozon's new film.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
My Night at Maud's especiallly gains depth through the philosophical/religious discussion

Partly because Rohmer has always been extremely private (granting few if any interviews, turning down invites to festivals, etc.), film buffs and film academics have been forced to figure him out based on his films. This has usually led nowhere because, while Rohmer's films often explore the nature of morality, he seldom if ever lauds or damns the choices made by the characters (an observation that closes Howard's review).
Yet Rohmer has been tagged as a conservative based on two films: The Lady and the Duke and My Night at Maud's. It's the latter that concerns me at this juncture. In this film, the narrative arc seems to me to validate the protagonist (Jean-Louis Trintignant)'s Jansenism by showing him at the end happily married to the church girl he felt predestined to wed while the more beautiful, intelligent, secular Maud is comparably desolate. For once, the director seems to be taking sides. This view is further supported by Rohmer's strong defense (cahiers du cinema) of similar positions taken by Mr. Bresson.

his work acquires still further interest as an artistic "œuvre" through the interrelationships of the whole, every single one of his films, to the theme of the sexes pursuied through civilized conversation and repeated meetings among usually two or three people, with the three exceptions you mention, including the odd Percival.

Another exception would be the set-in-the-18th-century The Marquise of O.
A film of Rohmer that has a certain structural uniqueness is Le Rayon Vert, in that it's a single character study, a young and miserable woman who can't manage to connect with anybody until the very last shot of the film.

The degree of improvisation is a somewhat moot point.

The degree of adherence to a pre-written script varies from project to project (the two based on other writings: Perceval and Marquise, were definitely filmed as written). I think the process from page to film is important to research and ponder as far as one wants to get beyond the superficial appreciation of what Rohmer does. He was a novelist, film critic and magazine editor before he became a filmmaker. His films feature direct framing and no expressive camera moves or peculiarities of mise-en-scene. The first thing one notices in his pictures are all those words. Certainly how they got there has to figure prominently in any discussion about Rohmer. It's rumored that as he got into his 60s he increasingly allowed actors playing young characters to improvise a great deal of the dialogue during the long rehearsal process that's one of his trademarks.

[Chris Knipp]

Interesting comments, Oscar. You probably know Rohmer's entire body of work better than I do. Don't think I've seen the Marquise of O. I probably don't use the phrase "moot point" right. I've never quite understood what it means. What I meant is it's not so important whether there's improvisation or not. I'm not questioning your statement of fact. You're no doubt correct that over the past twenty years or so he has had his actors improvise more, but my point still holds, that the conversations are more idealized and artificial than even educated, elegant young French people have, so whether or not the lines are all written, the dialogue remains stylized -- though the uncomplicated mise-en-scene keeps it from looking like there's a lot of stiff authorial control. I'll stick with what I said:
The conversations actually are highly artificial, but that doesn't mean they are all written out. He has his own style, and it is a highly French one of flirtatious yet analytical discussion. I'm not sure investigation into Rohmer's "actual" methods is going to reveal as much as simply looking at the films. No doubt he is conservative, in some sense, as revealed by the My Night at Maud's conversations. Simply the unchanging focus of the majority of his films shows a kind of conservatism, but one that, like his dialogue, is not constricting. Bear in mind that My Night at Maud's takes place in the conservative provincial setting of Clermont Ferrand; most of the films are set in Paris or at chic holiday spots where the mood's more liberal. (See the discussion of Paris as "le centre du monde" vs. "les nouvelles villes" by Fabrice Luchini's character in Les Nuits de la pleine lune.)

Le Rayon vert is another one that stands out, but there are always variations in his plots and most of his films focus on one character over the others. The fact is, Rohmer's work is so gossimer light, analyzing it threatens to "break a butterfly upon a wheel."

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
the conversations are more idealized and artificial than even educated, elegant young French people have, so whether or not the lines are all written, the dialogue remains stylized --

I would feel more comfortable disagreeing with this if I spoke French. Just to clarify, you don't think the dialogues filmed could be the actual conversations (the most interesting and revealing perhaps) that these educated and sophisticated young French people would have. They have been to some extent idealized or stylized, and there's something that makes them artificial.

In that case, one would have to conclude that the many who have called attention to his naturalism are perhaps wrong. Or that the director is not always successful in achieving naturalism. Rohmer has stated that the reason his period films are so faithful to the source texts is that he could barely approximate and estimate the natural speech of the period in which the film is set. His producer Margaret Menegoz has stated that Rohmer even writes his dialogue on the basis of tape-recorded chats with his actors, so that he can capture their particular nuances of modern, young speech. She explains there wasn't even a script for Le Rayon Vert, which is as close to cinema verite as a fiction film gets.

[Chris Knipp]

Yes, you've paraphrased me correctly. And no, we don't speak (or hear) French like natives, even though I do understand it and speak it. In fact I'm starting from a friend born in Montreal, a native French speaker, who mentioned to me years ago how artificial and "written" the conversations in Rohmer seemed to her. I can see the possiblity of what you're pointing out, that he's made his conversations more "naturalistic" as time went on -- paradoxically, because as he's gotten older the conversation of young people has become something he was less and less able to recreate himself without such artifices as tape recorders.

Overall though I'd think it's obvious from the get-go that the prevalence of dialogue in our man's films isn't now and never was naturalistic; that scenes like those of My Night at Maud's rarely occur in real life; that ceaseless talk between good looking men and women who're strongly attracted to each other would be clearly artificial, a device, a convention. But all behavior adheres strictly to conventions, which vary among different cultures and times; and French conversation may be more like this than American conversation. This issue is worth exploring further, just because there's no simple answer. I don't think the writers who've said Rohmer's style is "naturalistic" are "wrong." But I believe I can find French corroboration for my point that Rohmer's dialogues are not naturalistic, and are not meant to reproduce actual French conversations, even if Rohmer listened to his actors talking and wrote down things they said. Nonetheless I'd agree that the simplicity and elegance of his style creates a sense of what we could call the natural. Bear in mind that nature is art. This is an eighteenth-century notion -- see Alexander Pope: "All Nature is but Art unknown to thee" -- and Rohmer has strong links with the eighteenth century (and seventeenth), when, in fact, conversation reached its highest stage of development (i.e., artifice) , and people actually did hold lengthy, elegant, quotable conversations on a daily basis: see Boswell's life of Johnson, Restoration drama; Marivaux (and note the ironic contrasts between the stylized talk in the playwright and the kids' modern day banlieue talk in L'Esquive).

Creating a sense of the "natural" in art is an act of artifice. There isn't any simple answer to this interesting question. As Claire Vassé has written (http://www.nacara.net/reas/2_stage%20multithematiques/11%2006%2002%20-%20rohmer/analyse.html) (found this online) Rohmer is unclassifiable because " he plays with paradoxe. He's perverse and moral, natural and artificial, classic and modern…" In a review of Mouret's 2000 "Laissons Lucie faire," a film an IMDb viewer called "Rohmer lite," Vincent Ostria in the review Les Inrockuptibles excerpted in Allociné (http://www.allocine.fr/film/revuedepresse_gen_cfilm=27786&note=3&ccritique=340923.html) referred to Rohmer as "the Marivaux of the Nouvelle Vague" and described his dialogue as "chiseled."*


*"Même si les dialogues ne sont pas aussi ciselés que chez Rohmer, on trouve ce petit air de famille entre le travail du jeune Marseillais et celui du Marivaux de la Nouvelle Vague."

[oscar jubis]

Very instructive post. I do believe the dialogue in his films set in the present got more naturalistic. Compare for instance My Night at Maud's and Le Rayon Vert. Your comment that there's no simple answer rings true to me. One would have to approach the issue film by film. But I see a tendency towards more naturalism as Rohmer got older.

[Chris Knipp]

Yes I think you're probably right. Maybe the focus on younger, more physical people -- Melvil Poupaud types or the guys in L'Ami de mon amie, vs. Jean-Louis Trintignant or Jean-Claude Brialy -- led that way too, toward more informal, less intellectual conversation. Whereas My Night at Maud's is sex in the head, in Les Nuits de la pleine lune/Nights of Full Mood you have actual sex in bed. But as you say, you'd have to consider it film by film.

I find I've got a copy in that box of Laissons Lucie faire, the "Rohmer lite" film, by the way, so I'm going to watch it.