3 ms·

Éric Rohmer, Conservative Filmmaker

3 points by thazework 6y ago

splithalf 6y ago
Can’t imagine his films being accepted in today’s cancel culture, for sure, but never thought of them as conservative per se, anti-Marxist maybe.
- vixen99 6y ago
  No, nor have I ever even thought about his political stance when enjoying a fair number of his films. I wonder if anyone else suspects as I do that `cancel culture` is rather more limited in its spread & influence than its adherents would like to believe.
  - splithalf 6y ago
    Can’t think of many recent movies that portray pedophilia in a sympathetic light but I’m not a big movie guy. To me, it seems a sort of puritanical zeitgeist operates cyclically (inquisition, Salem, mccarthy, dr Seuss) and we might be near a local peak in that cycle. Ymmv. Regarding Rohmer, his dialogues often veered into politics and my impression is that he had clear views on say Marxism and such. Again ymmv.
- thazework 6y ago
  His conservatism transcends such considerations, though as Brody mentions, could certainly be tied to a certain occidental mystique - which he later obliquely denied. Paradoxically the films of his which deal most explicitly with sexual mores (Claire's Knee, La Collectionneuse) are those that carry the most regressive lessons: consider them in the context of the free love ideology of the 60s and 70s. And then of course there is the masterpiece of fidélité, My Night at Maud's. For me though, more than anything else Rohmer is remembered as the chronicler of bourgeois ennui - certainly there is a political dimension here but it is ambivalent. And even then he always depicted his protagonists with care and love, never as caricutures (The Green Ray is emblematic, few other filmmakers could depict the protagonist as anything but pathetic, not Rohmer though). For those interested- an earlier review by Brody of a Rohmer film (Summer's Tale) with these words that convey what Brody possibly regards as the root of Rohmer's conservatism: "what emerges is the ironic truth, the confidence that from self-denial, from refusal, from negation, from evasion, from self-effacement, from withdrawal, and from an active self-marginalization, a positive image will ultimately emerge."https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/eric-rohmers-tribute-to-his-younger-self https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/eric-rohmers..."
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

3 points by thazework 6y ago

Can’t imagine his films being accepted in today’s cancel culture, for sure, but never thought of them as conservative per se, anti-Marxist maybe.

vixen99 6y ago
No, nor have I ever even thought about his political stance when enjoying a fair number of his films. I wonder if anyone else suspects as I do that `cancel culture` is rather more limited in its spread & influence than its adherents would like to believe.
- splithalf 6y ago
  Can’t think of many recent movies that portray pedophilia in a sympathetic light but I’m not a big movie guy. To me, it seems a sort of puritanical zeitgeist operates cyclically (inquisition, Salem, mccarthy, dr Seuss) and we might be near a local peak in that cycle. Ymmv. Regarding Rohmer, his dialogues often veered into politics and my impression is that he had clear views on say Marxism and such. Again ymmv.
thazework 6y ago
His conservatism transcends such considerations, though as Brody mentions, could certainly be tied to a certain occidental mystique - which he later obliquely denied. Paradoxically the films of his which deal most explicitly with sexual mores (Claire's Knee, La Collectionneuse) are those that carry the most regressive lessons: consider them in the context of the free love ideology of the 60s and 70s. And then of course there is the masterpiece of fidélité, My Night at Maud's. For me though, more than anything else Rohmer is remembered as the chronicler of bourgeois ennui - certainly there is a political dimension here but it is ambivalent. And even then he always depicted his protagonists with care and love, never as caricutures (The Green Ray is emblematic, few other filmmakers could depict the protagonist as anything but pathetic, not Rohmer though). For those interested- an earlier review by Brody of a Rohmer film (Summer's Tale) with these words that convey what Brody possibly regards as the root of Rohmer's conservatism: "what emerges is the ironic truth, the confidence that from self-denial, from refusal, from negation, from evasion, from self-effacement, from withdrawal, and from an active self-marginalization, a positive image will ultimately emerge."https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/eric-rohmers-tribute-to-his-younger-self https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/eric-rohmers..."

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]