French Literature Reviews - 2026
A. de Baecque & N. Herpe, Éric Rohmer
Art and Visual Culture
Antoine de Baecque & Noël Herpe, Éric Rohmer
Paris: Stock, 2014.
EAN 9782234075610.
604 p.
Price 29EUR
Publisher's overview:
What do we actually know about Éric Rohmer, other than that he epitomizes a quintessentially French and refined approach to filmmaking? A few titles readily come to mind: My Night at Maud's, Chloe in the Afternoon, Full Moon in Paris. We also know how fond the filmmaker was of casting young, beautiful women—the "Rohmerian girls"—from Arielle Dombasle to Rosette, from Pascale Ogier to Marie Rivière. We remember, too, that he launched several actors who would go on to forge successful careers of their own: Jean-Claude Brialy, Fabrice Luchini, and Pascal Greggory.
Yet, do we know, for instance, that his twenty-five feature films drew over eight million viewers in France alone, and millions more worldwide? Do we know that another man, Maurice Schérer, hid behind the pseudonym Éric Rohmer, so deeply did he enjoy inventing alter egos and concealing his true face behind his films? Here is the first biography of Éric Rohmer: a puritan and an aesthetician, a practicing Catholic in love with beauty in all its forms, editor-in-chief of *Cahiers du cinéma* and television man, a detached citizen nostalgic for the Ancien Régime—who would ultimately end up voting green.
A man rich in contradictions, driven by the extraordinary diversity of his artistic curiosities. Drawing on previously unpublished archives, this book paints the portrait of a great director who was also a writer, illustrator, composer, producer, and occasionally even an actor! A true one-man band, for whom cinema was the synthesis of all arts.
Antoine de Baecque is a professor of film history at the University of Nanterre. He has previously published biographies of François Truffaut (1996, with Serge Toubiana) and Jean-Luc Godard (2010), as well as essays on cinephilia and the French New Wave. He has served as editor-in-chief of *Cahiers du cinéma* and subsequently headed the culture section of *Libération*. Noël Herpe is a senior lecturer at the University of Paris-VIII.
Author or editor of several books (on René Clair and Sacha Guitry), he coordinated the collection *Rohmer et les Autres*, as well as a volume of interviews with Rohmer centered around his text *Le Celluloïd et le Marbre* (2010). He has also published two acclaimed autobiographical narratives, *Journal en ruines* (2011) and *Mes scènes primitives* (2013).
As a central figure of the French New Wave, Rohmer began his critical career at Cahiers du cinéma before transitioning to filmmaking, where he developed a distinct cinematic language characterized by rigorous dialogues, moral dilemmas, and meticulous aesthetic choices. This biography situates his cinematic output within broader artistic and intellectual traditions, highlighting how his work engages with literature, philosophy, and classical arts. By examining his trajectory from film critic to master director, the authors provide essential context for understanding his unique place in twentieth-century French culture and European art cinema.
This volume serves scholars, film historians, and cinephiles interested in the mechanics of auteur cinema and the cultural landscape of post-war France. It addresses questions regarding the synthesis of various artistic mediums—such as music, literature, and visual arts—within the architecture of a film. The book is particularly useful for readers seeking to untangle the persona of Maurice Schérer from the legendary cinematic output of Éric Rohmer, offering a nuanced perspective on a filmmaker who viewed cinema as the ultimate meeting point of all creative expressions.