Éric Rohmer

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/538/Njrns8.jpg
Gwenaëlle Simon et Melvil Poupaud in A Summer's Tale

A light wine that keeps its flavor

A.O. Scott's New York Times "appraisal" (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/movies/13rohmer.htm) of the late Éric Rohmer as "the classicist, calmly dissecting desire," is logical, but also limiting and ultimately beside the point. Rohmer certainly stayed free of trends. His early work doesn't reflect the times the way Godard's or Truffaut's does. His non-historical films, which are in the majority, are "classically" simple. They are filmed straightforwardly, without elaborate tricks; they don't even use music very much. Their concerns are timeless, not especially related to the decades in which they are made. He worked in a well established French tradition, a tradition that each artist must (in Nabokov's phrase) "transcend in his own way."

And yet somehow this description ("classicist, dissecting desire"), while superficially accurate, doesn't seem to me to tell anyone who hasn't watched a Rohmer film what the experience of doing so might be like. Again let's except the historical flims, which are rather different. Scott goes to some length to show how they fit with his whole oeuvre, and that's fine and fits in with the "classicist" theme Scott's sounding. But he also rightly says: '"The Moral Tales" and the cycles that followed — the six "Comedies and Proverbs" in the 1980s and the "Tales of the Four Seasons" in the 1990s — are the essential Rohmer. '

What gets lost in Scott's "appraisal" is how much fun Rohmer's films are, and how French they are, and how unpretentious, and how reliably satisfying--as long as you accept that the issues they bring up are eternally interesting, at any age; as long as you can tune in to the French point of view. There are big differences among the individual films, but they're all conversations. An artist friend of mine objected that French movies are just a lot of talk where nothing ever happens. Richard Corless' piece (http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1953023,00.html#ixzz0cZAZ4I1q) on Rohmer for Time brings up this issue--that Rohmer is not to every taste:

As light and pleasant as a Rohmer work often was — attractive people falling in love, at least with the idea of love — it was a taste not everyone cared to acquire. Quentin Tarantino, the great enthu-woozy-ast of world cinema, offered this very qualified recommendation of Rohmer's films: "You have to see one of them, and if you kind of like that one, then you should see his other ones. But you need to see one to see if you like it." He makes Rohmer's movies sound less like caviar, more like artichokes. Gene Hackman, in his role as a detective in Arthur Penn's 1975 Night Moves, is even more dismissive. "I saw a Rohmer film once," he says. "It was kind of like watching paint dry."That line is famous. And if it's your reaction, you'll never want to watch a single Rohmer film. But if you like one, you'll like them all, because they're so consistent, some of them are hard to distinguish from each other. But he was not repeating himself. He was simply consistent in his concerns. The marvelous thing is that they stayed fresh for so long (with excursions, sometimes memorable, into the historical pieces.)

"Attractive people falling in love, at least with the idea of love": that's right. The "Moral Tales," "Comedies and Proverbs," and "Tales of the Four Seasons" aren't about work, or about class; they're about attractions--but attractions rationally considered. But the love isn't so much acted out as talked about. These are conversations between men and women about love. Sometimes the characters actually have sex with each other; they certainly kiss; and being attractive, they're strongly attracted to each other. More often they never get around to it, not that the films are about abstention. You know the characters are desirable and available and it's going to happen. (Maybe this is why so many of them take place in the summer at the beach, when the hormones are most alive.) Chloe in the Afternoon is about adultery. We know the husband is sleeping on a regular basis with the fascinating, independent "other woman," Chloe. Claire's Knee is about a flirtation of an older man with a nubile and perfect young girl. A Summer's Tale (1996) is about a young man at the beach in the summer who has to choose between three different women, and can't really decide. Luckily at the end something else comes up. The important thing is that the one he thinks least important and least desirable, perhaps because the most attainable, he thinks of just as a friend, someone to talk about his dilemma of choices with. In fact she is the one who really cares about him, the best one. He doesn't get it: isn't that just like a young man?

What I find quintessentially French (allowing for the danger of stereotyping inherent in such talk) is that Rohmner's films are rational talk -- about that most irrational of subjects, love; relations between men and women (gay sex doesn't come in). In one of Rohmer's earliest, most important, and most serious treatments of these matters, My Night at Maud's (1969), the decisions take on explicit philosophical and religious as well as moral overtones. The events take place in a very Catholic provincial town, instead of Paris, it's Christmastime, and attendance at midnight mass is involved. This film is in black and white. It's the cornerstone of Rohmer's work, and in a sense validates it. It shows that, after all, he is not superficial. But the light touch, the colorful backgrounds, often at the seashore in the summertime, are essential Rohmer too. His cinema is not solemn and angst-ridden. The "Moral Tales" are an antidote to Scenes from a Marriage, to Nordic depression. They are Meditarranean. Sometimes, even when the irrepressibly articulate Fabrice Lucchini is involved (as in Nights of the Full Moon/Les nuits de la pleine lune, 1984), they are witty and frivolous, like an eighteenth-century comedy of manners.

Rohmer's work is largely light, but the seriousness is in the intelligence of the conversation, its French clarity. Corless concludes that the best films are "essences all worth bottling," and this is a good thought. They're like wines of different vintages, but (as Scott rightly observes) they will not get old. Part of the freshness and the clarity may be due to early dedication to the written word. Rohmer began destined for a literary career, and published a novel long before he made a film. Like his Nouvelle Vague colleagues, he wrote for Cahiers du Cinéma and for six years was its editor. A collection of his essays was, notably, entitled Le Goût de la beauté (A Taste for Beauty; éd. Cahiers du cinéma, 1994). Rohmer never lost that taste. The love of youth, of beauty, and of love itself, was always fresh and vivid in his work. Holding himself apart from others, he preserved the wine. "Classicist" has a cold sound, suggesting some musty distillation. His work was always alive, and will remain so.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/536/pllBTh.jpg
ÉRIC ROHMER

___________________
*Le Monde says (http://www.lemonde.fr/carnet/article/2010/01/11/mort-d-eric-rohmer-legende-du-cinema-francais_1290329_3382.html) his name was Jean-Marie Maurice Schérer. Let's just call him Éric Rohmer, shall we, with an accent?

[Howard Schumann]

He was one of the greatest. This is something I wrote some time ago but still appropriate.

According to Jurgen Fauth of WorldFilm: "The loveliness of Rohmer's films lies in the acute observation, the light humor, and the mature way in which the characters' problems are handled. The people in these films look a little less glamorous than film stars, but they are much more real, and they're a lot smarter and more articulate, too. When you think about it, it's quite remarkable to watch people talk about love for ninety minutes and never have them utter anything trite, tired, or shop-worn".

According to Rohmer, his films describe "less with what people do than with what is going on in their minds while they are doing it." Rohmer's interest is in exploring the "what-ifs" of relationships and the roads not taken. He describes his tales as follows: "Everything seems very simple and all my characters are a bit obsessed with logic. They have a system and principles, and they build up a world that can be explained by this system ... It's not exactly happy, but that's what the films are all about." Rohmer's characters are thinkers and are not inclined to act spontaneously.

Rohmer, however, does not judge or evaluate his characters but accepts them the way that they are. Despite the fact that there is a great deal of talking in his films, they are sensual and possess a reserved elegance that is delightfully charming. In the words of film critic Eliot Wilhelm, "Rohmer's films are a kind of reverse Seinfeld: they can appear to be about nothing, but in fact are almost always profoundly stirring and emotionally resonant in ways that may make you smile contentedly to yourself, hours, days, or weeks afterward."

[Chris Knipp]

Excellent description. Thank you for adding this. Absolutely right about Rohmer's people and how they operate and the effect of the films.

[Johann]

Eric Rohmer has died. *sigh*
Another cinema giant gone...

[Howard Schumann]

Excellent description. Thank you for adding this. Absolutely right about Rohmer's people and how they operate and the effect of the films.

Thanks much. What are your favorite Rohmer films? Mine are:

A Green Ray
Claire's Knee
Autumn Tale
A Summer's Tale
Romance of Astrea and Celadon
Chloe in the Afternoon
Pauline at the Beach

[Chris Knipp]

From Richard Brody’s blog (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2010/01/rohmerian.html) in The New Yorker online:


One of the most Rohmerian things about Rohmer’s films is his actors’ verbal agility and heightened attentiveness; their state of energy and consciousness seems a step higher than life. And what does he tell them in order to achieve this effect? Here he is, in an undated radio interview:

I tell the actors to act. I don’t give them any particular instructions. Oh, I may tell them, "Sit down," or "You can stand up," but, in general, I don’t give them any instructions.

On the other hand, the actor Serge Renko, who played important roles in Rohmer’s last three features, told Libération that, before the start of filming on the first movie Rohmer cast him in, "Rendezvous in Paris," from 1995, he spent several months working wtih Rohmer on texts and scenes, often together with another actress, in the locations where the film would be shot—after which, Renko said, "The shoot was placed under the sign of freedom." On "The Lady and the Duke," from 2001, Renko said, they "alternated a day of rehearsal and a day of shooting." So Rohmer’s lack of direction on the set was the product of a meticulous mutual understanding that developed over the course of preparatory work, which rendered the exercise of on-set directorial authority superfluous. He, in effect, Rohmerized his cast.

In an interview on French television (http://www.lemonde.fr/carnet/video/2010/01/11/jean-louis-trintignant-parle-de-la-direction-d-acteur-d-eric-rohmer_1290347_3382.html#ens_id=1290326) after the making of My Night at Maud’s, Jean-Louis Tritignant comments that Rohmer’s scripts were "very written, but very spoken too," so precise that even a comma was of great importance, but wonderfully easy to play.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks much. What are your favorite Rohmer films? Mine are:

A Green Ray
Claire's Knee
Autumn Tale
A Summer's Tale
Romance of Astrea and Celadon
Chloe in the Afternoon
Pauline at the Beach

The great thing about Rohmer is that he is so consistent. One doesn't have to have favorites, and if as Tarantino suggests one sees a single Rohmer film and likes it, then one will probably like them all. To your list I would certainly add Perceval and My Night at Maud's, and obviously I personally like Full Moon in Paris and Boyfriends and Girlfriends.

[oscar jubis]

Rohmer's work as a critic remained wedded to the auteurist tendencies of Cahiers du Cinema from its inception until the late 1960s. Rohmer resisted the revolution in film criticism that aimed to adapt and embrace semiology, psychoanalysis and Marxist ideology which took place at the end of the 60s and was imported to the US and the UK in the 1970s (usually referred simply as "theory"). This critical approach was characterized by a regressive and puritanical stance towards the pleasures of movie-watching. Instead, Rohmer's criticism celebrated the possibilities of cinema and never abandoned a Bazinian orientation. Bazin's great insight was that the main difference between film from the other arts was its unique, unprecedented relationship to reality. Rohmer wrote: "Film does not say, it shows" and "Cinema possesses the truth right from the beginning". Film captures a a bit of reality for posterity so that it is simultaneously present every time it is projected onto a screen and absent because its actuality belongs to the past. Rohmer strives for naturalism in the sense that he aims to present images that remind us of the actual world because they are the actual world (Godard was also a Bazinian at first: "Every film is a documentary of its actors"). Rohmer aims for the viewer to recognize the actual world in the images he presents to us. He worked very hard with his actors to create situations and conversations that reflected what occurs naturally in the world. The art of filmmaking is in the "showing" and in the search for beauty. This beauty, from Rohmer's viewpoint, is not invented but "discovered, captured like a prey, abstracted from" the realm of the real. Rohmer's work as a critic is grounded on his experience with movies not forcefully borrowed theories from semiology or psychoanalysis. Rohmer's work as a filmmaker is based on naturalism and involves discovery expeditions in search of beauty.

*Rohmer's quotes come from his book "The Taste for Beauty". Godard's is deep in my memory bank without specific provenance.

[Chris Knipp]

I like that you're read the book (I haven't) and that you point out Rohmer's unwillingness to go the way of "theory" and preference for life as it's experienced. However that hardly evokes Rohmer's films any better than A.O. Scott's discussion of his "classicism." As I've said more than once before here, "reality" is a dangerous word, a snare and a delusion, a word that should never be used without inverted commas. Howrard quoted 'Jurgen Fauth of WorldFilm: "The loveliness of Rohmer's films lies in the acute observation, the light humor, and the mature way in which the characters' problems are handled. The people in these films look a little less glamorous than film stars, but they are much more real, and they're a lot smarter and more articulate, too."' That's a bit ambiguous. What's it mean to be "more real"? But are they "smarter and more articulate" than film stars -- or than real people?

I quoted Richard Brody's NYer film blog (link above), "One of the most Rohmerian things about Rohmer’s films is his actors’ verbal agility and heightened attentiveness; their state of energy and consciousness seems a step higher than life. " Then I cited what Jean-Louis Tritignant said, that Roher's dialogue was "very written" but also "very spoken" -- again rather ambiguous. Certainly the long discussions Tritignant's character has in My Night at Maud's are unlike conversation you're likely to encounter outside books. A native French-speaking friend of mine, who would know better than I did, once said that the people in Rohmer's films always seemed to be speaking a bit unnaturally. It's not "realistic." It's at best a heightened "reality," but I'm not sure what "reality" means here, or anywhere really. The "stories" Rohmer's films tell are very refined, with everyday details filtered out leaving only the (generally good-looking, if not "movie star" good-looking--but that's somewhat misleading; some of the actors are definitely movie stars; Melvil Pouplad had already made about six films when he was in Conte d'été) few people discussing relationships, and a few other things, such as whether to live in Paris or the outskirts. It's one of the most refined and stylized worlds in movies. And I love that. But what does it mean to say Rohmer "worked very hard with his actors to create situations and conversations that reflected what occurs naturally in the world"? I assume you love Rohmers films, as I do, but is this the most fitting tribute to them?

[oscar jubis]

My intention in the previous post (and this one, to a large extent) is to attempt to say something essential and seminal about Rohmer and how his criticism and his filmmaking evidence a common philosophy. I don't think one can grasp Rohmer's work as either critic or filmmaker without taking to heart the title of the first (to my knowledge) English-language book about Rohmer: G.C. Crisp's "Eric Rohmer: Realist and Moralist". My use of the term reality refers to the state of things at a moment in time as perceived by...Eric Rohmer, in this case. His work aims to be faithful to that "reality". Rohmer aims to make films which are true to his experience with the actors in relatively lengthy pre-production stages and to his experience with the (mostly) "real" location in which his films are set. Rohmer's use of the camera is rather conservative, his camera is largely inconspicuous. I believe that one of the most useful techniques to understand film is to be constantly aware of the role and the personality of the camera. This is rather easy to do when viewing a Welles film or a Hitchcock film, for example, but it is rather difficult to do in a Rohmer film. It feels as if the film is telling itself. The camera is almost always placed where it will be the least noticed. One has to remind oneself that there is an artist intervening between the viewer and the world-on-film. The word "stylized" is appropriate only when referring to Rohmer's films set in the past. This is where his empiricism becomes manifest in that he knows he cannot have direct experience with the historical moment. Instead of faking realism or attempting to approximate it, in films like Perceval, he makes everything look stylized (even the trees!) and theatrical, and adheres faithfully to the 11th century poem that is the textual basis of the film. This excerpt from Crisp's book, in which the author attempts to summarize Rohmer's "project", perhaps says more clearly and more intelligently what I wanted to convey in my previous post. It also brings into play Rohmer's strong monotheistic beliefs:

"The cinema is a privileged art form because it most faithfully transcribes the beauty of the real world. The real world is intrinsically beautiful because it is God's handiwork. Any distortion of this, any attempt by man to improve on it, is indicative of arrogance and verges on the sacrilegious. According to this line of reasoning, beauty is a quality not of art but of the world, so art can never improve on reality; at best, subordinate to that reality, it can shine with a reflected glory. The director's job is to open a window onto reality, to create a 'transparent' cinema which simply presents, with as little interference as possible, the beauty of the world."

[Chris Knipp]

Well, now I get what yoiu're saying much more clearly. He is certainly a moralist, and he is true to his own reality, to the reality he sees at the time, yes, of course that is definitely true; and he's never telling anybody else's story or filming anybody else's screenplay or working in any body else's genre. That "reality" is his experience with the actors, yes, okay, and they are filmed in mostly real settings, yes, of course, indeed so; his films are not noirs, not Avatars: they use ordinary, if well-selected settings. He would not shoot laborers in tract houses, or boys in a dicey neighborhood improvising from day to day, as Shane Meadows did his recent delightful romp, Somers Town. Yes, his camera is unobtrusive, placed where it will be least noticed. This is a very selective reality, but it is indeed his reality.

But I still insist that all his films are stylized (even though done in such a casual and artful manner that they look utterly natural) and this statement that the word would only apply to his fims set in the past is misleading. The style is so distinctive that you have only to see a couple minutes to know it's a Rohmer film. One of the main elements here is the continual played-through, self-conscious conversations that make up the body of the film, and usually occur between a man and a woman, or two couples, more rarely a group at a dinner or a party, very rarely a scene of anyone at work. Non one in extremis. No shouting matches, no violence. Even bringing in someone who cries a lot (in Le rayon vert) (the appealingly sad Marie Rivière) was a striking innovation. Roher's films are chamber music, classical, not rock, no symphonies. The are highly social. And Rohmer's "reality" is very often about somebody trying and failing to find the right mate. His "reality" is not some solemn meditation on the nature of the world but on close observations of "the flirtations and fickle emotions of young people," as Dave Kehr desribed the "Comedies and Proverbs" in his piece (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/movies/12rohmer.html) in the NYTimes of January 11, 2010. As Kehr points out, Rohmer's most famous film (and his most compelling one) remains My Night at Maud's, and that is very largely a debate about religion and philosophy whose urgency is heightened by sexual attraction; the setting of that debate would hardly matter except that it's the lady's apartment, late into the night, so the sexual element is heightened by the place. This is a flirtation, but a very rational, French one, whose main conversations, despite what Trintignant said in that interview, are much more "written" than "spoken," though they play well, as does some highly artificial dialog; the combination of smart talk and sexual temptation is like something out of the eighteenth century; like Les liaisons dangereuses. Hence Rohmer's relation to tradition; even to Racine.

It's all stylized, but there are degrees. I quoted A.O. Scott's statement, obviously true, though not meaning that the other films are negligible, that '"The Moral Tales" and the cycles that followed — the six "Comedies and Proverbs" in the 1980s and the "Tales of the Four Seasons" in the 1990s — are the essential Rohmer. ' So I am talking about them, the bulk of his work. Of course Perceval is highly stylized, and rather strange. The Romance of Astrea and Celedon is highly stylized too, and to my mind both of these are bloodless, though they are beautiful. Your comment on the reason for the stylization there -- that he uses it because he can't know exactly what historical scenes might literally be like -- makes sense. That's a bit like Derek Jarmon, who evoked the life and times of Caravaggio more effectively by intentionally not trying to use accurate sets or costumes; in both cases budget limitations were also motives behind the method , of course.

"...beauty is a quality not of art but of the world, so art can never improve on reality; at best, subordinate to that reality, it can shine with a reflected glory. The director's job is to open a window onto reality, to create a 'transparent' cinema which simply presents, with as little interference as possible, the beauty of the world." Yes, these are lovely thoughts indeed. However they must be taken cum grano salis, though comparing Rohmer's writing with his work is a worthwhile project. Since Rohmer's" Moral Tales" and "Tales of the Four Seasons" (I notice) are available in book form, it would be a good project to study those texts by themselves. I love the Rohmerian images and the Rohmerian camera, but the films begin and end with the texts, and the "Tales and Proverbs" series grows out of literary quotations or proverbs, as in the misleadingly translated "Boyfriends and Girlfriends," L'Ami de mon amie ("The [male] Friend of my 'female] Friend"), which grows out of the proverb "Les amis de mes amis sont mes amis" ("the friends of my friends are my friends") which undergoes an ironic twist, and Le rayon vert ("Summer") grows out of lines from a poem by Rimbaud.

[Chris Knipp]

I just found out that there was a Twitter channel called #nighbmoves inspired by the Arthur Penn movie line spoken by Gene Hackman, "I saw an Eric Rohmer movie once. It was kind of like watching paint dry." People added some clever variations (well, some clever) summing up other directors in equally dismissive (but sometimes appreciative) manner. This is from: Jim Emerson's Scanners: blog. (http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2010/01/i_saw_a_rohmer_film_once_the_t.html)

Here is the Twitter series quoted in the blog:

"I saw a Sirk film once. It was kind of like watching paint cry." #nightmoves

"I saw a Preminger film once. It was kind of like watching a spacious 'Scope frame articulate the divisions between people." #nightmoves

"I saw a Ruiz film once. It was kind of like watching a dry oil painting becoming wet again." #nightmoves

"I saw a Tom Laughlin movie once. It was kind of like punching Jesus in the face." #nightmoves

"I saw a Bruce LaBruce film once. It was kind of like watching dudes fuck." #nightmoves

"I saw a John Carney movie. Once." #nightmoves

"I saw a Bela Tarr film once. It was kinda like following the painter while he goes to get more paint." #nightmoves

"I saw a Dusan Makavejev film once. It was kind of like watching Grad students make porn" #nightmoves

"I saw a Stan Brakhage movie once; it was kinda like Paint watching me dry." #nightmoves

"I saw a Preston Sturges film once. It was kind of like watching paint dry...with a little sex in it!" #nightmoves

I watched a Gaspar Noe film once. It was like having my nose rubbed in shit and then being called a sissy for wanting a towel. #nightmoves

"I saw a Fritz Lang film once. It was kind of like watching the lines of a deadly trap being drawn from everyday settings." #nightmoves

"I saw an Ingmar Bergman film once. It was kind of like quietly willing oneself to grow a tumor." #nightmoves

I saw a Bay film once. It was kind of like watching CGI dry. #nightmoves

"I saw a David Lynch film once. It was like a midget soaking my eyes in gasoline and setting them on fire." #nightmoves

"I saw a Derek Jarman movie once. It was exactly like watching paint die." #nightmoves

"I saw a Rob Cohen film once. It was AWFUL!" #nightmoves

"I saw an Aki Kaurimäki film once. It was like watching humor dry." #nightmoves

I saw a Penn film once. It was kind of like watching Melanie Griffith dry. #nightmoves (This person HAS seen the movie!)

"I saw a Sokurov film once. It was kind of like watching paint dry...I liked it!" #nightmoves

[Chris Knipp]

A summary of Eric Rohmer obit pieces (http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/1390) by David Hudson on The Auteurs cites comments that his influences can be seen in Mumblecore. There's a beautiful irony in this. Who would think that these contemporary, naturalistic slice-of-life American indie films would resemble the elegant products of one of modern French cinema's greats? Yet it's true, and the comparison may throw light on both Rohmer and Mumblecore, especially Andrew Bujalski.

I was looking up "Mumblecore" and found that Eric Rohmer is sometimes mentioned. I just recently, belatedly, watched BEESWAX, the latest (NYC theatrical: 2009; DVD, 2010) film by Andrew Bujalski (called the originator of M-core) . Then I watched his FUNNY HA HA and now want to re-watch his middle effort, MUTUAL APPRECIATION. After watching FUNNY HA HA it finally struck me that Bujalski, at least in that film, was indeed an American, Gen-X, lower budget Eric Rohmer.

In FUNNY HA HA in one conversation after another a character , a young woman, is going around, uncertainly, working at jobs that don't pay much and that she may not like, searching for a boyfriend and in love with a boy who doesn't like her as much and may be teasing her. This is exactly the sort of thing that happens in Rohmer's BOYFRIENDS AND GIRLFRIENDS (L'ami de mon amie).

Rohmer's characters are usually better looking (or photographed more flatteringly) and better dressed, and have better manners, and are more polished; they're French. They do not express themselves in clumsy, hesitant, repetitive speech. Is this because they don't talk that way, or because Rohmer allowed less improvisation? Notably, Bujalski points out that while he does allow improvisation of language and tone in scenes, he works from a conventional screenplay where all the dialogue is carefully written out -- just as Rohmer did.

Much has been made of the fact that the behavior and dialogue of the Bujalski (and other M-core) films is passive-aggressive. I'm not certain what that means. Psychologically it means behavior that is uncooperative and perhaps negative and stubborn. In fact I think the trait that predominates is ambivalence,combined with hedging one's bets -- as exemplified by Alex (Christian Rudder), the boyish charmer with whom Marnie (Kate Dollenmayer) is enamored of. He flirts with her constantly, while hinting that he is not available and suddenly turning out to have gotten married without anybody's knowing about it. This is the kind of thing that happens in Rohmer's films, but I don't think the term "passive-aggressive" has been applied to his characters' behavior. If it had been suggested to him, however, he might readily have agreed to it, just as he readily agreed in a TV interview referenced in one of the links above that the Arthur Penn/NIGHT MOVIES criticism that watching his films was like "watching paint dry" was valid. In a recent interview at SXSW (http://blog.spout.com/2009/03/25/sxsw-interview-with-andrew-bujalski-writerdirector-of-beeswax/) with Katrina Longworth, Andrew Bujalski commented that the suggestion that his films would do well with a European audience was just a nice way of saying they are "slow." Bujalski hiimself as an actor tends to seem bumbling and shy but at the same time very polite and ultimately a smooth operator, after all. Those elements in his own off screen personality may help explain how his films manage to seem both so tentative and random and yet so well put together.

I would say the difference from Eric Rohmer's characters and their talk is only that Rohmer's are smoother talkers. This is presumably because Bujalski is attempting greater "realism" in his dialogue. There is always the possibility, a thing observable when listening to how people talk in other milieux and cultures, that Bujalski's middle-class white young people and perhaps American young people in general make a fetish of expressing themselves clumsily, with a numbing prevalence of "uh's" and ""um's" and "like's" in every sentence. But Rohmer claimed to be realistic too. However Rohmer's language is more classical. If Bujalski's films are partly always "about language," they're about language that is breaking down, becoming terminally sloppy and inarticulate. This has been a staple of American "Method" style realism -- the "pauses" Alan Arkin's drama teacher character objects to so strongly in CITY ISLAND -- in American semi-mainstream films such as Delbert Mann's 1955 TV-style drama MARTY. Such naturalism tends to date; Rohmer's more classical dialogue doesn't.

In both cases the opposite has been claimed by opponents. Critics of Bujalski say their group of (often less privileged) young Americans don't act or talk like the people in his movies. Many have said that Eric Rohmer's films aren't realistic at all.

Vadim Rizov has commented about Mumblecore (like many, he professes to abhor the term; and lately, to insist that if there ever was such a school, it is dead or has been superseded), in brief pieces online, though I can't now find the one where he listed more M-core directors than I knew of. See "Mumblecore is dead, long live Mumblecore (http://www.ifc.com/blogs/indie-eye/2010/04/mumblecore.php)." Rizov did a 2007 piece (http://www.thereeler.com/features/green_on_the_scene.php) on David Gordon Green, "How indie maverick became the unwitting nexus between Apatow and mumblecore." But though his actors mumble, Green wasn't ever Mumblecore, I think. It's the real M-ers who resemble Rohmer. Joe Swanberg, whose Hannah on the Stairs I have watched, is also Rohmer-eque, though he adds more sex (but Rohmer's characters are sexier than Bujalski's).

[oscar jubis]

Many film critics strive to discover a genre, a group of films that exists out there which share a set of conventions and character types which reflect aspects of contemporary society. The task also involves explaining how these films amount to variations or interpretations of the same themes. The first piece by Rizov attempts to enumerate the conventions or codes, and the character types of the alleged genre (or sub-genre?). Let's see what they are, in Rizov's words:
*Twentysomething filmmakers recording the minute emotional dilemmas of white, post-collegiate twentysomethings with a near-pathlogical fearlessness that could be confused with narcissism)
*kids were out there who'd never been taught to socialize had the right to exist that way -- not to learn to speak with assurance and ease, but to negotiate the terms of how they addressed each other, whether that looked sub-adult or not.
*there's a whole generational rift that still persists from the '60s about what it means to be an adult now, and at what point you can have a mature income/home and still conduct yourself in a way that isn't putatively "adult."
* People telling stories about others their own age without pathologizing it or insisting upon a generational crisis. The most unnerving revelation? Passive-aggressive, evasive patterns of expression are normal now for whatever reason.

What the critic would have to do next in order to justify using the term "mumblecore" would be to name a group of films and show how they meet the criteria (or to identify the criteria by which they qualify for membership in the group). I would not use the term in my writings because I don't know what it is. In the second piece, Rizov identifies GEORGE WASHINGTON as the "origin" of mumblecore yet you argue, and I agree, that Green wasn't ever "mumblecore". So what is "mumblecore" besides Andrew Bujalski's movies? And, what is gained by the use of this term? Does it clarify discourse or, rather, hinders communication because of its extreme vagueness?

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks forresponding to my comments.

Those quotes from Rizov provide a good summary and you're right: he's trying to line up a set of charateristics to define a genre, or more properly, a school or movement. He himself repeatedly complains about the term Mumblecore, and says it is meaningless or inaccurate or no longer valid. Unfortunately I originally found another piece by Rizov where he named a bunch of Mumnlecore directors who are more or less linked with the movement, but when I wrote these posts I could not find it again. You might look at the Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumblecore)for "Mumblecore," which begins
Mumblecore is an American independent film movement that arose in the early 2000s. It is primarily characterized by ultra-low budget production (often employing digital video cameras), focus on personal relationships between twenty-somethings, improvised scripts, and non-professional actors. Filmmakers in this genre include Lynn Shelton, Andrew Bujalski, Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass, Aaron Katz, Joe Swanberg, and Barry Jenkins. (Denby -- see below -- also includes Kate Hudson, and we will find others, I'm sure.) How do they know? Since Barry Jenkins is black, and his film MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY is a duo love slice of life, does he fit? Does he include himself? I have seen Joe Swanberg; the link with Bujalski is evident, despite his much greater focus on sexual relationships. Lynn Shelton's HUMPDAY (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2630-HUMPDAY-%28Lynn-Shelton-2009%29&highlight=Humpday)has been hailed as a crossover into mainstream of Mumblecore. I liked it but don't necessarily find it at all superior to Bujalski, Swanberg, or Jenkins.

You, definitely, have seen and recommended the Duplasses' CYRUS (a kind of crossover); I unfortunately am Duplass-challenged, having seen neither that (not here yet) nor THE PUFFY CHAIR, or BAGHEAD. An obvious journalistic heading for CYRUS is "The Duplass Brothers Move Beyond Mumblecore with CYRUS..." The question is, why does anyone need to "move beyond" it? Is it some inferior training ground, or a place where a young director can be independent and vernacular? I have not seen anything by Aaron Katz.

You say: What the critic would have to do next in order to justify using the term "mumblecore" would be to name a group of films and show how they meet the criteria (or to identify the criteria by which they qualify for membership in the group).

Maybe in an ideal world that is true. And the writer may have done it. This is just one piece by Rizov. He has written about other Mumblecore films elsewhere. But it may be enough to have been included in the group and not protested. Note that in a Wikipedia article on genre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre) (heading "Tyranny of Genre"), Richard Coe is quoted as saying, "If genre functions as a taxonomic classification system, it could constrain individual creativity." There are no really fixed "criteria." Compare the French New Wave. What criteria qualifies all those French directors for inclusion in the Nouvelle Vague, other than knowing each other, rejecting "films de qualité" of the well established French filmmakers, and perhaps a connection with Cahiers du Cinéma? Maybe some of the Mumblecore group met or meet at SXSW. In David Denby's New Yorker article (http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2009/03/16/090316crci_cinema_denby#ixzz0s6lIbVlm) about Mumblcore (which I bet Rizov would scorn; what's a pompous old fart like Denby know about this?), he points out that
the style wasn’t named until 2005, when the sound mixer Eric Masunaga, having a drink at a bar during the South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW), in Austin, used the term to describe an independent film he had worked on.

Anyhow though, ultimately to define this kind of loosely connected filmmakers maybe it's best just to look for what Ludwig Wittgenstein called a system of "family resenblances, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance)" some characteristics overlapping, joining them together, but none having all the same characteristics. (Trust someone as precise and brilliant as Wittgenstein to come up with a system to define connections that are important but imprecise.) Barry Jenkins if he is in the group certainly isn't white. Rizov over-defines the group in those quotes you give, but in doing so he may come up with some interesting comments on some of the films. I still wonder if "passive aggressive" really means anything, or is distinctive to any group if it does, and since this is a kind of (pop?) psychological term you may have a comment on that. I don't think in Bujalski's films the people are being passive aggressive, they're just being vague and confused, can't make up their minds, but keep on making noises at each other, which may be deceptive, like the guy in FUNNY HA HA, Alex (Christian Rudder), who teases Marnie (Kate Dollenmayer), who he knows likes him, but is not available. Denby quotes Amy Taubin in a Film Comment piece describing Bujalski as, "a poet of demurral, hesitation, and noncommitment." That's what it is, not "passive aggressive."

I didn't expect to like these films when I watched MUTUAL APPRECIATION (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=651&start=0) but I did, right away, for the specificity and the skill in using non-actors and, of course, the sense conveyed of ordinary spoken language, of these young people anyway.

One of Denby's defining characteristics contrasting Mumblecore directors with those of the past, e.g. the New Wave, is that they "lack ambition." Their goals are modest. But let's not take this as a put-down. Remember (I always do anyway) that Jane Austen, one of the writers I admire above all others, spoke modestly and not inaccurately of "the little bit of ivory on which I work." On that little bit of ivory look what she produced: Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park. One in a million novelists produces such little bits of ivory. I'm not comparing Bujalski to Jane Austen. But he could have more in common with her than you might think. And in these terms, crossing over into the mainstream strikes me as a particularly bad thing for Mumblecore directors to do. Unfortunately it's hard to resist the temptation of making enough to live on.

Nonetheless apart from that, these directors are young, and as they grow older, their work will change. Won't it? Well, but did Éric Rohmer's? One of the things that's both maddening and delightful about Rohmer's films is that the films he made in his thirties and the ones he made in his seventies have so many of the same concerns. He had the historical and mythological digressions, but for the most part he stuck to his little bit of ivory too. I never miss the excitement of a polar noir in his films, but sometimes may find myself wishing Bujalski's world (which he commands so skillfully) would have something sexier in it, like a shiny car, a night club, a guy with a pistol in his hand, whiskey and cigarettes, Alain Delon or Jeanne Moreau -- a girl in a little black dress. But of course that isn't Bujalski and it's not Rohmer either.

[oscar jubis]

The wikipedia quote uses the words "movement" and "genre" interchangeably. Maybe "mumblecore" (which I can only use as a quotation myself) is both a movement and a genre. I happen to be more interested in genres than movements, at least currently. And bringing up Wittgenstein into a discussion of genre is most appropriate and stimulating. Thanks.

Part of my lack of enthusiasm for "mumblecore"(and by that I mean simply the films of the directors listed by wikipedia) is that I didn't find any of the films to be anywhere close to the American independent films I have loved over the course of the last decade. And they are: the trio by Ramin Bahrani, Paranoid Park, Half Nelson, Sugar, George Washington, All the Real Girls, Lodge Kerrigan's Keane, Julian Goldberger's Trans, Lance Hammer's Ballast, and Azazel Jacobs' Momma's Man. Mutual Appreciation, Medicine for Melancholy, and Cyrus are good films though, worth recommending, and I will continue to seek the work of their writer/directors.

[Chris Knipp]

It certainly is both a movement and a genre, and also a group. I can see you're interested in genre and that seems from Wikipedia to be all the rage nowadays. I still see it in the strict sense of literary genre or movie genre, literary being like narratie, epic, or lyric poetry, novel, play, poem, short story, or more narrowly crime novel; or in music punk rock, techno, folk, heavy metal, hard rock, disco, and on and on. I'm glad you appreciate the introduction of Wittgenstein, an old favorite of mine. The family resemblance concept is a very useful and important one for people who are getting all tied up in knots with definitions and demarcations and "taxonomy."

These guys are really not to be compared to others. They are sui generis. That is why they have their own name and separate category. They work on their own terms and they work very well that way. What is the point of comparing them with Bahrani or Paranoid Park or Ballast? Those films are not trying to show young educated adults with no clear direction feeling around for relationships, or how such people talk in fairly extended conversations. I could throw out all of them and say the ones you mention are not as good as my European classics. But what's the value of comparing apples to oranges? Mumblecore films don't try to be something they are not. I think you like to make comparisons and rate movies more than I do, despite your having said in the past that it's all just a matter of what you like. What's the use of saying Tarkovsy is more profound than an Ealing comedy, or film noir isn't as funny as Charlie Chaplin? Just because a film is American and independent and made on a small budget (and some you mentioned were made on a much larger budget than anything by the Mumblecore group) doesn't mean it's valid to compare them. Who would you compare Éric Rohmer with and find him wanting? But don't try. Let's just drop the comparisons, please.

[oscar jubis]

Why not? Comparing is crucial to understanding. Everything our senses apprehend gets immediately compared to past experience. This happens at every level of intellectual activity including criticism. I have yet to see sufficient evidence that these films constitute a genre and that their authors form a movement. And the mediocre quality of the films as a whole (exceptions noted in previous post) makes me lose interest in the critical arguments.

[Chris Knipp]

Of course one needs touchstones. And it may be well true that much Mumblecore is "mediocre" as you say. However I can't agree that all but CYRUS, MUTUAL APPRECIATION, and MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY (which we're not even quite sure is Mumblecore) is "mediocre". Insofar as it's something new and fresh, that's what makes it stimulating and why writers are drawn to it and viewers especially young ones are too. Sometimes the value of a new film is that it tries something different, not that it succeeds in being a great film. And if we apply old values or criteria to it we may find it wanting and later it may turn out to be much better than we realized. Weren't the New Wave trashed by conventional French critics at first?

The critical discussion I've offered is perhaps a bit boring. Rizov and I failed to engage your interest. But the topic is of interest precisely for the challenges it poses to describe and categorize. With masterpieces it hardly matters what category. But entymologists dont say I don't like this bug, it's a mediocre bug. They say wow, this is a challenge to categorize. Think of Bujalski, Duplass, Swanberg, et al. as bugs.

And the reason for beginning the topic here was how the Mumblecore focus on young people, relationships, and conversation made it connect with Éric Rohmer's work. That it's not up to Rohmer should be no surprise. But kids just out of Harvard are not going to turn into French people in Lacoste shirts and scarves.

[oscar jubis]

The latest issue of Senses of Cinema (http://www.sensesofcinema.com/) is devoted almost entirely to Rohmer. The level of scholarship of most of these essays is very high.

[Chris Knipp]

Information August 11, 2010 from the Film Society of Lincoln Center:
http://a.imageshack.us/img132/3606/595y.jpg

Now on Sale!

August 18 - September 3: The Sign of Rohmer

In celebration of Eric Rohmer's extraordinary career, we are delighted to present the most complete North American retrospective of Rohmer's work in more than a decade, including all of his feature films, the U.S. premiere of his 1980 TV film Catherine de Heilbronn, plus special in-person appearances by key Rohmer collaborators.

[Johann]

Great thread here. Excellent reading.

I don't really have anything to add (my knowledge of Rohmer is limited).
Chris, are you attending the retropective at Lincoln Center?

And Oscar, just FYI I bought a dictionary of psychology and I've been "reading" it.
I feel smarter just by reading a dictionary for psychology!! who knew!!!

[Chris Knipp]

Welcome back, Johann. No, I am in California now, but I'm on the FSLC mailing list and get notices of all their many film series. I expect to be back in NYC in September for the New York Film Festival. Hope so, anyway. Of course a lot of Rohmer series have been put on to celebrate his life and work, but the Lincoln Center people are saying theirs is the most comprehensive.

[Johann]

So you're at home?
Hope the summer is winding up nice for you. Looking forward to more posts from NY or elsewhere..

I just bought a blu-ray DVD player (first one I've ever owned) so I hope to post a little more these coming days.

[Chris Knipp]

Congratulations on your new gadget.

I have been sick with a bad virus for over a month and not having much fun. I have kept going to new movies and have reviewed them. I've done these reviews;

INCEPTION
SOUTH OF THE BORDER
THE LOTTERY
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
LIFE DURING WARTIME
SALT
MR. HOOVER AND I (This will be augmented to include short reviews of all Emile de Antonio's main films)
GREAT DIRECTORS
CHARLIE ST. CLOUD
DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS
WINNEBAGO MAN
TWELVE
GET LOW

I expect to do a review of EAT PRAY LOVE this weekend. Of these, the new ones, I would most recommend LIFE DURING WARTIME but of course INCEPTION should be seen and WINNEBAGO MAN is sort of interesting, TWELVE as I said is a Guilty Pleasure if you like that kind of stuff, and GET LOW is worth seeing for Robert Duvall's and Bill Murray's acting (I suppose; it will be so if Oscar nominations come). I am not recommending THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT. I think it's overrated, and not "the way we live now" as claimed, though again, the acting is good, or decent anyway.

[Johann]

Hope you can beat that virus soon. Your writing is unaffected and that's all that matters.
Lifesblood of FilmLeaf? That would be you.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks. Are you going to check in on INCEPTION?

[Johann]

I hope to see INCEPTION this weekend. Really gonna make an effort to see it this weekend.
It's in IMAX as well- which version would be preferable do you think? You've seen it- would it lend itself to IMAX?
After DARK KNIGHT I would guess "Yes"

[Chris Knipp]

Sure go for iMax if that floats your boat. I personally have never had the iMax experience. When possible I watch new 3D movies in 2D. I can imagine the dimensions better without gimmicks. But iMax sounds impressive. And that is what INCEPTION is meant to me, impressive.