Six Moral Tales (The Bakery Girl of Monceau / Suzanne’s Career / My Night at Maud’s / La collectionneuse / Claire’s Knee / Love in the Afternoon) (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Item as described, shipped promptly

Beautiful portrayals of love and its complications.

Great director, great pack. Criterion is the best

In 1967 "La Collectioneusse" played in one theater in Paris for almost a year and sold 70,000 tickets! Who can imagine anything like this happening today with a film of this kind, of mostly long, usually intellectual, conversations? "My Night At Maude's" did more than 4 times that business and sold over 300,000 tickets. Both of these films were done almost entirely with first takes. Rohmer wouldn't give the signal to start shooting a scene unless it was going well, so as not to waste any film stock, which at the time was quite expensive.Criterion screwed up the subtitles on "My Night at Maude's" in at least 3 different places I caught watching that - words were dropped from where they belonged - and if I as a viewer can easily catch these mistakes then Criterion's quality control spelling / grammar / language checker, if he/she existed at all, should have been able to catch them even better. So the question remains - why didn't they go back and correct them? And the answer is almost certainly: because they don't care and they determined, somehow, that it wouldn't have been worth their effort to do the corrections, though in the digital age it's so much easier to do than it ever was in the mechanical age of printing. You hardly ever see any mistakes of this obvious a kind on product from the bigger studios. Criterion's answer would probably be: the big Studios can afford to do all that extra checking and quality control but not us.Huh? Since when? I thought Criterion was a quality label for film buffs and cineastes - so if they're going to get the transfers done right, they should also do the wording right on the subtitles!P.S. People who like these Rohmer films should definitely check out "Du côté d’Orouët" (1971) by Jacques Rozier (available at the rarefilmm site), one of the lost classics of French cinema.

Éric Rohmer deserves to be seen way more.When I teach "American Myth in the Western Film," I seek the unexpected in an often unloved genre that rarely refers, in any way, to its far coarser 'history,' in favor of a 'myth,' understatement intended. But Monsieur Rohmer comes up often when we discuss precision and pacing in filmmaking.Rohmer does not demand to be seen. His austere style will not appeal to those easily besotted by flash.Rohmer provides ample meat for a discussion of formal filmmaking. His oeuvre, despite an adoration of the sports film, which leaves fans like me wanting Rohmer to have helmed an Olympic, and his championing of fifties American cinema, when the western, then-quite-unloved by American literatti, despite a relatively recent affection for, say, Budd Boetticher, is in its total apotheosis as a genre... thus Rohmer opens the room not only to the slow, 'let it breathe' pace of the western (one of its finest attributes in a landscape easily wooed by edits and obtuse angles - while adding a dimension that is intense, interior, and methodical in a totally non-meretricious way.There really are very few filmmakers carrying the Rohmer aesthetic into the new era.Rohmer is my palate-cleanser. He restores my loves of pure cinema.A bit about him - Rohmer is the elder statesman of the great French New Wave directors who closely tied filmmaking (therefore their films are often, to some degree, comments as to what has gone on before) to film criticism. As the editor of "Cahiers du cinéma" from the late fifties to early sixties, Rohmer and his cadre stormed American cinema, understanding what made that period's films great better than most American cirtics did. After all, this is an era of in which John Ford's "The Searchers" is in the immediate rearview mirror, Douglas Sirk is thriving, and Nicholas "Organized chaos as an aesthetic" Ray's "Rebel Without a Cause" and the latter's more brilliant "Bigger Than Life," all as he works with Jean-Luc Godard (who is about blow cinema up and reform its shattered 'referential' shards) and François Truffaut—are all moving fast from the pen to the director's chair.On top of that, Rohmer holds a special place in my heart. For me, every once in a while cinema grows stale. While I still may not have penetrated far deeper than the iceberg's tip, I have adapted a quite lame, especially in my callous youth, "seen it all" mentality - until something bracing and new captivates me.I first heard of Éric Rohmer in a hip Gene Hackman flick “Night Moves,” from American New Wave auteur Arthur Penn, back when I cycled over and over, ad infinitum, through that typical slate of Penn-Rafleson-Scorsese-Copolla-Kubrick-Lumet et. al, rinse, repeat. In "Night Moves," Hackman’s character compares watching a Rohmer film to “watching paint dry.”I cannot disagree more.Rohmer is the perfect antidote to an adolescent moody impasse (in which Bob Rafleson's "Five Easy Pieces," with an incandescent Nicholson and Sidney Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon" are easily my favorite survivors of the moment when I leave that great, talented bunch behind in favor of new shores).At long last, I go deep into the silence of Ingmar Bergman and quiet serenity of Éric Rohmer, cinema matters again.Adoring Robert Benton (is he stylistically the most Rohmeresque American at the time?), Lawrence Kasdan, and, yes, James L. Brooks, and Ron Shelton at home, abroad, from the the "Cahiers" crowd, I am underwhelmed by even Chabrol, France’s Hitchcock, in some ways - let alone a tedious (for me) wildly referential postmodernist like Jean Luc Godard, but when I see the films of Eric Rohmer, the scales fall from my eyes. I begin with “La collectionneuse,” included here, and I never look back.I must also add that in Blu-ray, the subtleties of the auteur's talent with color leaps forward.Content-wise, I love few things as much as two men talking Catholocism and morality in a serious way (Not as fun as Malle's "My Dinner with Andre") but is really reveals how much a movie can be two bright people conversing, going back and forth, from opposite poles.For me, “Chloe in the Afternoon” is an unmitigated classic. Rohmer with his quiet, serene style, joined the pantheon, the rarified pantheon occupied by figures as diverse as Ozu or the Marx Brothers, and by this I mean—genius. The outlook is Catholic, intellectual, progressive.The style: quiet; sublime. In a world that is way too loud, these films invite quiet. It would be nice to see a similar set with later work, such as “Pauline at the Beach,” “The Good Marriage,” (LOVE!), and “Summer.”Warm regards,Chuck.

This blu-ray set is beautiful. Not only is the packaging and imagery stunning, it also comes with the book of stories Six Moral Tales that each of the films is based on. This is truly an immersive Rohmer experience!

...the films aren't always the best at saying this, literally or figuratively. The high points of the set are definitely My Night At Maud's, Suzanne's Career, and Claire's Knee.The Bakery Girl of Monceau is basically a dry run of what he'll do in most of the other movies. Probably has the most in common with My Night at Maud's and La Collectionneuse. Love in the Afternoon is a good summation of everything he seems to be trying to do in all the films, good and bad.La Collectionneuse is definitely my least favorite entry with almost every bad gender trope that hasn't aged well from the French New Wave on full display. Still it gets it's point across in the final bit. (Claire's Knee would almost fall into this category as well but it does a better job of "judging" its main character)Great visual and audio transfer and chock full of special features.For French New Wave collector's, it's a must.

Another Criterion Collection box set edition disappointment; I don’t know what kind of restoration was done but the result is very poor and very grainy. Most of the films are very short in duration.

Arrivé rapidement et en parfait état !

Rohmer’s films are so elegant and psychologically and emotionally rich. A real master who makes it all seem so easy.