Today's post has been on my to-do list for ages. I covered one of
Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales in
my initial post on Arrow's Eric Rohmer boxed sets. Criterion, of course, has released all six in a fancy boxed set, which they later remade for blu-ray, and I included those editions of
Love In the Afternoon in that post. I also covered his 1958 short film,
Veronique and her Dunce, on that page, since it's included in Arrow's DVD set and Criterion's Moral Tales boxes (as an extra, since it's not one of the Moral Tales). But I never did the other five Moral Tales ...until now.
Tales covered on this page:
The Bakery Girl Of Monceau
Suzanne's Career
My Night At Maud's
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Tales covered on other pages:
The Collector (coming soon to Part B)
Claire's Knee (coming soon to Part B) Love In the Afternoon |
Criterion released their 6-disc DVD boxed set of Six Moral Tales in 2006. It also includes several short films by Rohmer and assorted extras, which we'll delve into further down. It was the first time all six films had been released together, and for a couple of them, it was their DVD debuts altogether. Love In the Afternoon had been previously released by Kino Lorber, while
The Bakery Girl of Monceau,
Suzanne's Career and
My Night At Maud's (Tales #1-3, respectively) had previously been released on DVD in the UK by Artificial Eye. I've still got two of those thanks to their inclusion in AE's 'Eric Rohmer: The Early Works' 2-disc set, also from 2006, because it included additional Rohmer films still unavailable elsewhere to this day. So we'll pour through all of that as well. And then, of course, Criterion reissued their Moral Tales in a 2020 3-disc blu-ray box with all new restorations.
So I guess I'll just go chronologically and start with 1962's
The Sign Of Leo,
even though it's not one of the Moral Tales. It's Rohmer's first
feature, and shows him working in some surprisingly conventional,
uncharacteristic ways. It features non-diegetic score and a widescreen
frame. But the story, about an American in Paris who spends his money
recklessly because he is convinced he will luck his way into a fortume,
and tone suggest the Rohmer we know: starting out a character with a
philosophical notion and having the whole story test it, injecting a bit
of fancy and fantasy into his contemporaries' Neo-realism. Speaking of
his contemporaries,
Jean-Luc Godard has an uncredited cameo, and
- purely coincidentally, I'm sure - went on to declare this #5 in his
top ten films of the year (his own film,
My Life To Live, ranked #6).
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2006 Artificial Eye DVD.
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AE's
DVDs are non-anamorphic, which is fine for all the fullscreen
stuff, but a problem with this widescreen movie. I've left the negative
space around the first screenshot above to illustrate why. It's also
framed at 1.58:1, which is presumably wrong (unhelpfully, the back of
the case just claims it's "[p]resented in the original 1.33:1 original
aspect ratio" for the set as a whole). But otherwise it's a pretty nice
transfer for DVD, non-interlaced and looking generally filmic.
Sporadic specks of dirt and damage might be taking that a little too
far, but it's light and never distracting. AE presents the original
mono track in Dolby Digital 2.0 with removable English subtitles and
also throws in a (similarly non-anamorphic) widescreen trailer.
Okay, so now let's get into the Moral Tales proper. 1963's
The Bakery Girl of Monceau is #1, and it's actually just a 23-minute short.
Barbet Schroeder (director of the
General Idi Amin Dada doc that we just looked at in
Part 4)
stars as a student who falls for a woman he spies wandering the streets
of Paris. It's a low budget affair, not even filmed with synced
sound. So a lot of it's narrated, though they eventually had to use ADR
for some crucial dialogue exchanges in the second half. As you can
imagine, then, while it fits the concept of all the Moral Tales, where a
man is dedicated to a woman, questions his beliefs when he's tempted by
another, but ultimately winds up preferring the first, it isn't able to
deliver the complexity or fascination of the bulk of Rohmer's work.
I don't normally think a low budget would work too hard against a film
like this, but when you're at the level of no natural sound... well.
It's still a pleasant and engaging short film; but not one I'd bother to
revisit much if it weren't part of the series.
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2006 AE DVD top; 2006 Criterion DVD mid; 2020 Crit BD bottom.
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So we've got a bit of a shifting aspect ratio here. AE starts us off at 1.33:1, just like it says on the tin. Criterion's 2006 DVD is a bit skinny at 1.31:1, and in 2020, they correct it to 1.37:1. It's not a huge difference, but the new framing is slightly cropping the image vertically. And the Criterion DVD is once again windowboxed, which is annoying now that TVs don't have overscanning. So the blu is already a welcome upgrade. Scanned in 2k from the original 16mm camera negative, it's also a stronger image. As an old 16mm film, we're not getting much more detail, but film grain is authentic and thoroughly captured. Highlights are also a bit blown on both DVDs, which are brighter in general. The BD fixes it, though that does mean it's a little easier to make out information in shadowy areas on the older DVDs than the blu sometimes. But that's a small thing; I'd never want to go back.
All three discs provide the original French mono with optional English subtitles, but the blu kicks it up to LPCM.
In terms of special features, Artificial Eye just gives us a couple
short films, which I'll circle back around to. Criterion also gives up
short films, which we'll also circle back to. But they also include a
big, new special feature (it's on their original DVD set and carried
over to the BD set): a roughly 90 minute conversation between Barbet
Schroeder and Eric Rohmer, where Schroeder interviews Rohmer in his
office about everything to do with the Moral Tales, and even
Sign Of the Lion. As you can surmise from its length, it's fairly comprehensive - a bountiful treasure trove for fans, but casual viewers may find it tedious to sit through, though it is edited with multiple camera angles, etc.
Suzanne's Career,
also from 1963, is arguably a short film, too, clocking in at 55
minutes. But it finally bridges the gap to feature length films for the
rest of the run, and now it's a glossier production with synced sound
and all. This one's memorable in Rohmer's filmography for being the one
that starts out with a seance, though it actually proves less fanciful than many of his other films. It's the story of a young man who finds himself constantly judging the titular Suzanne, mostly for failing to see through the charms of his caddish best friend. The industrious analysis of flirtation and young romance seen here really feels like we've entered Rohmerville now, past the rough early stage of him finding his footing as a filmmaker and in the seductive groove he'd be for the rest of his career.
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| 2006 AE DVD top; 2006 Criterion DVD mid; 2020 Crit BD bottom. |
Suzanne's Career has been scanned in 2k from the original 16mm camera negative just like Bakery Girl, but it looks considerably rougher. I'll trust Criterion, I guess, and assume that the difference is just down to the original filmmaking, but it feels like this was taken from a print, with it's softer, dupier look and murky dark interiors. Otherwise, the three discs take the same framing journey: 1.33, 1.31 windowboxed and ultimately winding up at a slightly matted 1.37:1. And again, all three discs have offer the original French mono with removable English subs and lossless LPCM on the blu. There are no extras for this one, except a couple short films that share disc space and we'll look at further down the line.
From now on, all the Moral Tales are proper feature length, starting with
My Night At Maud's from 1969. Why not
The Collector,
which came out in 1967? Well, Eric Rohmer wrote all these stories
before making the films, and so in the sequence he wrote and always
intended them,
My Night At Maud's is third and
The Collector is
fourth (not that there's any continuity between them). He also made a
bunch of shorts and TV films during that gap between '63 and '67.
Anyway, this is the film that brought Rohmer into the "mainstream." You know, mainstream as far as foreign art films the general public will never get around to watching. But, like, this film was nominated for two Academy Awards. It's the one your parents might've actually heard of and that earned him a status sort of along the lines of
Bertolucci,
Truffaut,
Pasolini and that cohort of globally recognized masters. This one's got all the Rohmer hallmarks, Catholic and atheist couple debating
Pascal and platonic relationships between men and women. It's also his Christmas movie, and you'll notice several similar themes recur decades later in
A Tale Of Winter.
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| 2006 Criterion DVD top; 2020 Crit BD bottom. |
Rohmer's moved on to 35mm at this point, though Criterion wasn't able to find the negatives for this one, so the BD is scanned in 3k from an interpositive. It's darker than the DVD, which is a bit washed but also has more contrasty highlights. The blu has much deeper blacks and an overall more satisfying, absorbing image. The aspect ratio is once again switching from 1.31 to 1.37, but this time, instead of matting the image, the blu-ray is revealing more picture along the sides. Film grain is a little splotchy, and would surely look nicer on a UHD, but it's miles ahead of the DVD, which barely even hints that grain had ever been part of the image. It's the biggest upgrade yet, and again raises the original mono up to LPCM.
Both discs have removable subs and a fun, vintage program about
Maud's from French television. It's just under fifteen minutes long and puts star
Jean-Louis Trintignant and producer
Pierre Cottrell
in a room with the host and a film critic. It's a bit light, but nice
to hear Trintignant talk about his experience working with Rohmer. The
short film on this disc is about Pascal, too, so that's appropriate.
But we'll get to that on part B of this Catch-Up.
Part 2, Part 6B? Yeah okay, I admit that's
over-complicated and this got a little away from me. I
underestimated what a big job it would be to do all these Tales. I
mean, the short films in these sets could constitute a full post for
themselves. But okay, that's it for today, see you shortly for
Criterion Catch-Up 2, Part 6B: The Other Five Moral Tales. 😛
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