My Night At Maud's
by Eric Rohmer
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Antoine Vitez, Françoise Fabian, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Léonide Kogan, Marie-Christine BarraultDirector: Eric Rohmer
Cinematographer: Néstor Almendros
Writer: Eric Rohmer
Editor: Cécile Decugis
Producer: Barbet Schroeder
Producer: Pierre Cottrell
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Black & White, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 105 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-01-14
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Fox Lorber
Movie Reviews of My Night At Maud's
Movie Review: Rohmer's Wager
Summary: 5 Stars
Jean-Louis Trintignant stars as Jean-Louis, a stern Catholic who has wandered the world before settling into a new job at Michelin in the Clermont area of France. For various reasons, Jean-Louis has never married, and at 34 years he finds himself lonely in this new place. He chances to meet an old school friend, Vital (Antoine Vitez). They have drinks and go to a bookstore and chat, primarily about religion and philosophy. When Vital proposes that they meet up with a newly divorced friend of his, Jean-Louis balks but eventually agrees. Enter the sexy pediatrician Maud. She attempts to seduce Jean-Louis, who is no naïve virgin, but such an interlude may not be within Jean-Louis' personal moral code. Will they end up together or will Jean-Louis find the nice Catholic girl of his dreams?
"My Night at Maud's" (1969) is the third in the series of director Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales, following two short films ("The Collector" was actually made and released third in the series, but is generally placed fourth). For various reasons, I'm just now getting around to viewing Rohmer's films even though I am a fan of many of the French Wave directors. To me, Rohmer's films seemed from afar to be less flashy and experimental than the work of Godard or Truffaut. I've missed out on some great work, such as "My Night at Maud's." His direction and scripting here is impeccable; the film manages to be grounded in stark realism (everything the actors do is perfectly in character) and talky yet somehow glamorous and lighter than air.
Some audiences will be put off by this movie, with its frequent long conversations involving religion and philosophy, focusing on Pascal's Wager. However, I found that I didn't need to understand the minutiae of these topics (I have read a bit of Pascal years ago), as these conversations exist primarily to show us the characters' moral codes - their sense of what they can and cannot do. As such, the movie succeeds brilliantly, demonstrating the gray areas of our moral codes that we all encounter. It's a rare movie that I can walk away from feeling as though I learned something new, yet still assured that I probably only understand 1/4 of it. Most highly recommended.
Summary of My Night At Maud's
French director Eric Rohmer, former critic and Cahiers du Cinema editor, created a very special romantic film series around the difficult choices men make when they fall in love with two women called "Six Moral Tales." My Night at Maud's was the third entry, and it was so well received in 1969 that it gave Rohmer international prominence. To this day, it remains Rohmer's masterpiece, a brilliantly insightful and sublime meditation on adult indiscretions. Jean-Louis Trintignant plays a chaste engineer who thinks he's met his soul mate in church (Marie-Christine Barrault), yet winds up accidentally spending the night with the seductive Maud (Francoise Fabian), who is more his intellectual equal. Filmed in stark black and white by Nestor Almendros, this is one of those rare films in which questions about philosophy translate into unexpected answers about the heart. It's slow and methodical, but well worth the experience. --Bill DesowitzSimilar DVD Movies
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