Éric
Rohmer’s editorship of Cahiers ended
in June 1963 after Jacques Rivette, and others, organized his decommission, so
that they could better promote an emerging modernist cinema and their Nouvelle Vague peers. In his new
biography, Antoine de Baecque and Noël Herpe writes about this episode, “We
know that the symptoms of betrayals, denial, agony (also see renaissance) have
punctured, since its origins, and all of the way to today, the
tumultuous life of the magazine, but it is certain that it sadly inscribed
itself, in the summer of 1963, in the spirit of Éric Rohmer.” With this putsch
came both good and bad. It created an intense resentment and split the
magazine, while it also initiated Rohmer to teach and work in television, which
would eventually lead to his filmmaking career.
In this
period the magazine was changing. The layout modernized in the November 1964
issue (N.160) and was turning towards a more conscious cinema, and towards a burgeoning structural theory. The magazine, with its new writing team, was
becoming again “an instrument of combat.” Rivette was the unofficial chief
editor for the first two years and, on the clash Rohmer-Rivette, de Baecque
highlights Rivette’s review of Chaplin’s Monsieur
Verdoux (August 1963), “The confrontation is brutal, almost savage: It is
no longer Goethe that defines beauty, but Barthes who is the one that is
structuring the thoughts on modern art.” While in their March 1970 issue
(N.218), in an editorial, the redaction explains that Doniol-Valcroze and Truffaut
bought the rights of the magazine back from Daniel Filipacchi, so that they
could assert their independence, and that moving forward, the three main points
of the new Cahiers line are: (1)
information and critical reflection, (2) to promote the circulation and
distribution of little known films, and (3) conscious of cinema’s ideological
intervention, the magazine will find a critical theory necessary to address it,
based on the Marxist science of historical materialism.
In
their November 1965 issue (N.172) there is one of their more ‘polemical’
round-tables Vingt ans après: Le cinema
American et la politique des auteurs by Comolli, Fieschi, Guegan, Mardore,
Techine, and Ollier. Even though it reads less violently today, it's a continuation of their
changing of lines, a revision of their traditional auteurism, from Hitchcock,
Hawks, Renoir, Rossellini to Resnais, Godard, Bunuel and Antonioni. It's a calling
into question of the original ideas of the magazine, a revisioning of favored
directors, a wider approach to authorism, more towards producers and studios,
and a transition towards a semiotic approach to film analysis.
In the
wake of this division Rohmer would slowly return to the magazine, though at
first there many conflicts, and his first interview would also appear in
this issue (N.172). It’s his first at the magazine, and unfortunately, it’s not
available in English (it’s a shame that these, or any of his Cahiers interviews, were not included in Eric Rohmer: Interviews). The following
are some highlights from L’ancien et le
nouveau: entretien avec Eric Rohmer which
was put together by Jean-Claudc Biette, Jacques Bontemps et Jeau-Louis
Comolli, who, in their introduction, write about Rohmer, that he “has
never stoped guiding us,” and that “by leaving the marble of Cahiers, hasn’t he given celluloid his
best critiques?”
Some
of the highlights of it are:
“I’m in agreement
with Pasolini on the fact that the cinematographic language is in fact a style.
There isn’t a cinematographic grammar, but more so a rhetoric that, in reality,
is extremely poor, and on the other hand, extremely moving.”
“I don’t think
that the modern cinema is one that is forced to give the impression that it’s
being filmed. There are now a lot of films where we feel the camera, and it has
also been like this in the past, but I don’t think that the distinguishing
factor between a modern and classic cinema resides in this. Nor do I think that
the modern cinema is exclusively poetic, and that the older cinema is one of
prose and story. For me, there is a form of modern cinema of prose and of the romanesque, where the poetry is present, but isn’t constitutive: it just emerges,
without being directly solicited. I don’t know if I can explain myself on this
point, because this would force me to judge the films of my contemporaries,
which I refuse to do, but either way, I’m under the impression that at Cahiers
there is one side, criticism, where there is too much the tendency to be
interested in a cinema where we feel the camera, and the auteur – which isn’t
the only auteur cinema – to the detriment of another cinema, the cinema of
narrative, which is considered to be emblamic of classicism, which in my
opinion isn’t more or less that than the other. Pasolini cites Godard and
Antonioni. We could also cite Resnais and Varda. These are filmmakers that are
really different, but that, from one perspective, can be put within the same
group.”
“The word Modern
is, by the way, a little galvanized. One can’t aim to be modern, or is if he
merits it. And one can’t be scared, as well, to not try to be modern. It can’t
start haunting artists.”
“But I’ve thought a lot about the cinema, in terms of a medium, and, on this subject, I have a lot of ideas. The Americans
were really naïve, by which I mean that they’ve never written on the subject,
or seriously thought about the cinema as a medium as an end in itself. If you
were to question them, almost all of them (maybe with the exception of Hawks,
who has some ideas, even though they are simple) just see it as a matter of
‘technique’ or in terms of the world as an object, that’s all.”
“I don’t agree.
You’ll probably say that I’m reactionary, as well as classical: for me, the
world doesn’t change, or at least only very little. The world is always the
word, not any less confused or clear. What changes is its art, it’s the way
people approach it.”
“Thinking about
it, I think Bazin offered new ideas, while we brought forward taste. The ideas
of Bazin are all great, while his tastes were contestable. The judgements of
Bazin were not ratified after the fact, by which I mean he didn’t really impose
an important filmmaker. He certainly liked some important filmmakers, but I
don’t think what he said about them really imposed them. For us, we never
really said anything important about a theory of cinema; on this subject we
just further developed Bazin’s ideas. On the other hand, I think that we found
good values, and the others that came after us rarified our taste: we imposed
filmmakers that have remained important and that, I think, will remain so.”
“A symbolic cinema
is what is actually the worst. We see it every now and then, these films whose
images want to play the exact role of a word or a phrase. This trend is long
over. Let’s not insist on this subject.”
“Actually,
I’m extremely indiferrent to politics – or at least, in its literal sense – but
I’ve always felt this way. I don’t know if I’m on the ‘Right’, but that which
is certain, anyways, is that I don’t feel like I’m on the left… The ‘Left’
doesn’t have a monopoly on truth and justice. I’m also for those virtues – who
isn’t? – and also for peace, liberty, the extinction of poverty, and the
respect for minorities. But I wouldn’t
necessarily calls this being a ‘Leftist’.”
“That which makes
us change our political position, sometimes, from one extreme to the other,
it’s chance, reading, a sentence, a woman, a friend, love for something new or
a sense of opportunity.”
***
This is
the start of Rohmer’s relationship with the magazine as a filmmaker. He would
be interviewed 18 times in Cahiers from
1965 to 2010. He would have a follow up interview, during this current actively
political period, in their April 1970 issue (219), by Pascal Bonitzer,
Jean-Louis Comolli, Serge Daney and Jean Narboni. And even though, they
describe in its introduction, “All the while, in this interview with Eric
Rohmer, we are in opposition towards him,” it offers many important points
regarding the magazine in this period, and Rohmer’s metaphysical, political,
and cinema view. There’s a clash between Rohmer’s metaphysics against their
historical materialism.
Rohmer,
who excels in the art of the conversation, and who is generally known for his
positive nature, in these interviews, he stands out by his frustration towards
his interlocutors and his necessity to take points to their logical conclusions.
Some of the addressed points here are: the reception of the film, the
representation of the ‘Marxist’ character in Ma nuit chez Maud, and their differences on how to perceive Bazin…
Here
are some of its highlights:
“What
you guys are doing, is a critique, and what I’ve found elsewhere (even though
it’s really interesting. And I agree in a certain way), regarding everything
that has been said about the film, it is perhaps the most insightful. But how
would I respond to this? My relation to the film isn’t important here. Without
a doubt since, as you know in the past I’ve been a critic, you are trying to
get me to do a critique of my own film, which is something that I absolutely
refuse to do, and which I would be incapable of.”
“Here, I don’t
want to do a commentary on my intentions, and I don’t think that you could get
me too, unless by a trick, get me to do a commentary on my intentions. I don’t
like this. This doesn’t interest me, and I don’t think that would be even able
to say anything interesting on the subject.”
“I don’t think
that from ‘historical materialism’ there can be drawn real fundamental truths.
For example, for me, I don’t attribute it any worth. Except that of a
philosophical system, among others. But it’s not a science.”
“Of course. But it was, in our period, full of studies of
signification that abstracted ideas of the direct in relation to Bazin: the
cinema like an instrument of discovery. For example, our production of
critiques in the Fifties had a profound relationship with Nature, to discover natural object whose beauty was revealed through cinema. This point, I see that
you don’t share it…”
“You talk about
the events of May 1968. But my ‘Contes Moraux’ don’t seek its inspiration from
these ‘events’, nor am I pretending that others can’t find inspiration from
them, nor am I even saying that one day I won’t be inspired by them. The role
of a filmmaker can be political. For example: Cousteau is taking up a fight
against the polluting of oceans. The problem of pollution is, and will be, the
major problem of our remaining century. This is a political problem since its
resolution is a governmental problem, or, if you would prefer, a collective
decision by the human society.”
***
On
the subject of Rohmer, it’s worth mentioning that Antoine de Baecque and Noël
Herpe’s new biography Éric Rohmer (Éditions
Stock) won the literary
prize from the Syndicat Francaise de la Critique de Cinema for the Meilleur livre français sur le cinéma. A must-read for anyone passionate about the director.
Hi, thanks for these fascinating insights - Rohmer's love of ecology surfaces again and demonstrates his 'different' political stance that anticipates later developments (and also is addressed in one of his most explicitly political films, L'Arbre, le Maire et le Mediatheque). As the author of Eric Rohmer Interviews, I would just like to explain that we would have loved to include Cahiers interviews but sadly the publishers who now own copyright (Hachette) refused us permission, point blank. We fought hard and managed to get a later interview published - a 1993 interview with Antoine de Baecque which discusses Rohmer's 'amateur' aesthetic. The 1970 interview is available in full in English on the Senses of Cinema website.
ReplyDeleteHi Gregory, Thanks for this information. That's even worst that they did not allow you to include these - they are fascinating, and important to understand Rohmer's development and his relationship with the mag. I'll have to check our the de Baecque interview, sounds interesting. Best, David
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