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| Hilton wants to get hitched Paris Hilton wants to get married this year. breakingnews.ie |
Eric Rohmer: Let's talk about … everything He made poignant, sensual films about first love and chance encounters. But it was the dialogue that made the late Eric Rohmer's movies magical, says Gilbert AdairWho says that the Âcinema is not in a state of terminal Âinfantilism? ÂConsider the case of the French filmmaker Eric Rohmer, who died on ÂMonday at the age of 89. It's a sobering thought that My Night With Maud, the work that established his international Âreputation all of 40 years ago – a Âcerebral comedy about a pious young Catholic intellectual and a flirtatious, free-thinking bourgeoise, who spend an Âunconsummated night together mostly discussing Pascalian theology – was a huge popular hit in its day, and not only in France. Nowadays, if My Night With Maud were made at all, it would almost certainly be marginalised, by critics and public alike, as an avant-gardist, even downright experimental, film, with an audience to match.During those intervening four Âdecades, and right up to Rohmer's death (his last film, The Romance of ÂAstrea and Celadon, was released in 2007), the director obstinately pursued his Âvision of the film-making art as the very highest form of DIY. Shooting swiftly and inexpensively on location, drawing repeatedly on a familiar pool of actors, classifying his films in groups with rather precious, 18th-century-sounding rubrics (Six Moral Tales, Comedies and Proverbs, and, latterly, Tales of the Four Seasons), he alone remained loyal to the new-wave credo that a film can, and should, be shot the way a novel is Âwritten: by one person, basically.Amazingly, he managed to make about 25 of these unlikely films. Still more amazingly, a fair proportion of them were commercial successes. (In fact, even the flops were successes: Rohmer, who was his own producer, kept overhead costs so low he couldn't help earning at least a little money from them.)There was, however, always Âsomething faintly Âdisturbing about such brilliantly airy confections as The Aviator's Wife, Full Moon in P or An Autumn Tale – or, more precisely, about the nature of their reputation both in and outside France, a reputation founded above all on their perceived Âintelligence. Just listen to the chorus of satisfied customers: "Such a Âcivilised Âdirector" and "Such Âintelligent Âcharacters" and "What a pleasure to hear such good talk in the cinema!"Now I yield to no one in my Âadmiration for Rohmer. Yet his Âcharacters are among the most Âfoolish and ineffectual milquetoasts ever to have graced a cinema screen; 90% of their celebrated talk is Âunadulterated Âtwaddle. This is Âabsolutely not a flaw: it is, rather, a Âspecies of trompe l'oeil (or trompe l'oreille). Rohmer jangles the small change of wit with such unfailing Âmastery that, just as his characters are persuaded they are making clever Âremarks, so most of the audience are persuaded they are hearing them. It helps, too, that he had an Âextraordinary gift for pastiching the rhetorical tropes of classical French comedy, with a Âparticular affection for the "nothing but . . . " formula to which many 18th-century aphorists were Âaddicted: "Women are nothing but . . . ", for Âexample, or "Sexual Âattraction is Ânothing but . . . ". It scarcely matters what specific tailpiece Rohmer added – the audience are already Ânodding in worldly Âacquiescence.Rohmer himself, possessed as he was in person of a uniquely aloof and aristocratic Âdrollery, must have been delighted at how limpidly the vanity of the world on screen was mirrored by that off. When I once interviewed him for Sight and Sound magazine, he Âremarked, as though it went without saying, that all his films were comedies, whatever the apparent subject – just as life itself, he argued, was a comedy disguised as a tragedy.Yet he never despised his characters (who, in a weird Benjamin Buttonish effect, became younger as Rohmer himself aged). In film after film, their plots halfway between Marivaux and an episode of Friends, he meticulously unravelled the moral deceptions and emotional imbroglios in which his brainy dandies and scheming Ânymphets infallibly entangle themselves, without ever withdrawing his sympathy for, or indeed his love of, them. A superb film-maker of the Âholiday experience, of bronzed bodies and itsy-bitsy bikinis (The Collector, Claire's Knee, Pauline at the Beach, The Green Ray, A Summer's Tale), ÂRohmer was responsible for some of the most genuinely erotic films ever made. And, for all his right-leaning Âpolitics and reactionary Âliterary tastes (he made a series of strange and not entirely convincing adaptations of Kleist's The Marquise of O, Chrétien de Troyes's Perceval, and Honoré d'Urfé's Astrea and Celadon), he was equally, Âunquestionably, a feminist.While dialogue was crucial to ÂRohmer's (often surprisingly plotty) narratives, the visual element was Âabsolutely not just functional. He Âhimself once told me that he wished his imagery to be as cool and Ârefreshing as a glass of cold water, and he was able to conjure up an entire community – chilly, snowbound ÂClermont-Ferrand in My Night With Maud; the lush green environs of Lake Annecy in Claire's Knee; the Âmeandering, cobblestoned streets of Le Mans in A Good Marriage – with such topological, even meteorological, exactitude you could have set your watch by his sensual but unshowy mise en scène. He knew, in short, how to film what D W Griffith called "the wind in the trees", how to film air.I recently encountered a word I didn't know, along with its definition. The word was sprezzatura and the Âdefinition was that of the 16th-century Italian diplomat, courtier and writer Baldassare Castiglione. Wikipedia Âoffers two definitions, the first of which seems to me ideally applicable to Rohmer himself, and the second to his dramatis personae. The first is: "A certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and Âalmost without thought." The second is: "A form of defensive irony: the Âability to disguise what one Âreally Âdesires, feels, thinks, and means or Âintends behind a mask of apparent Âreticence and nonchalance." I couldn't have put it better myself.Eric Rohmerguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Oscar beckons for Clooney for performance in 'Up in the Air' George Clooney can do no wrong at the moment, soaring from strength to strength as an actor who knows how to turn in one memorable performance after another. breakingnews.ie |
Berlin film festival throws spotlight on Asian cinema Films from Asian directors will open and close proceedings at the 60th BerlinaleFilms from Asian directors will bookend this year's Berlin film festival, organisers announced today. Chinese director and previous Golden Bear winner Wang Quan'an will open the 60th edition with the world premiere of his new film Apart Together on 11 February, while 78-year-old Yoji Yamada will close proceedings on 20 February with his About Her Brother, the Osaka-born director's 81st film.Apart Together, which will screen in competition, is a period drama about a soldier who is reunited with the love of his life decades after fleeing the forces of Chairman Mao for Taiwan in 1949. The director, part of China's sixth generation of film-makers, previously won in 2007 for Tuya's Marriage, about a woman from the Mongolian grasslands who divorces her disabled husband in the hope of finding an able-bodied partner prepared to look after herself, her children, and her former spouse.Yamada, whose new family drama screens out of competition, is best known in Japan for his long running series of Tora-san films, about a kind-hearted vagabond who is always unlucky in love. His period feature The Twilight Samurai was nominated for the best foreign language film Oscar in 2004.In total, 26 films will compete for this year's Golden Bear. The most high profile entry is undoubtedly the latest movie from the Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski, currently under house arrest in Switzerland awaiting possible extradition to the US. The Ghost Writer, based on the Robert Harris novel The Ghost, stars Ewan McGregor as a journalist who uncovers a conspiracy while helping a former British prime minister, played by Pierce Brosnan, to compile his memoirs.Both actors are expected in Berlin, as is Leonardo DiCaprio, who stars in Martin Scorsese's new thriller Shutter Island, which is screening out of competition.Berlin film festivalWorld cinemaRoman PolanskiMartin ScorseseBen Childguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Dance judge jealous of Cowell success Nigel Lythgoe is jealous of Simon Cowell's success. breakingnews.ie |