Film: My Night With Maud
Release date: 11th October 2010
Certificate: PG
Running time: 105 mins
Director: Eric Rohmer
Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Françoise Fabian, Marie-Christine Barrault, Antoine Vitez, Léonide Kogan
Genre: Drama
Studio: Artificial Eye
Format: DVD
Country: France
My Night With Maud is the third of Eric Rohmer’s ‘six moral tales’, a series of films which all revolve around the same concept – a man who is drawn or dedicated to one woman, but over the course of the film meets another woman who acts as a temptation which he eventually is able to resist. Released in 1969, My Night With Maud is a New Wave showcase of intellectual contemplations projected in a most charming manner.
We follow our Catholic protagonist Jean-Louis around the city of Claremont-Ferond, a picturesque town just north of Paris.
Having established his aspirations for the future, Jean-Louis is convinced that his fate is to marry an attractive young blonde girl who he notices at mass. He then bumps into Vidal, a Marxist school-friend that he hasn’t seen for years, who takes him round to Maud’s for an evening of dinner and thoughtful debate. Jean-Louis engages in a succession of philosophical conversations with Vidal and free-spirited temptress Maud, causing him to query his religious nature, and the likelihood of marriage with the blonde girl. Maud later convinces Jean-Louis to stay the night due to the weather conditions, where there are definite hints of seduction. The film revolves around these conversations between Jean-Louis and friends, covering the usual – sex, religion, philosophy – and then shifting the plot slightly into the territory of ‘story’ as we witness the subsequent steps in Jean-Louis’ life.
Jean-Louis follows the concept of the moral tales, consequently hooking up with the blonde girl from church and leaving Maud to become nothing more than part of his past. Enter Francoise: future wife. There are elements of romance intertwined with this intellectual production, and yet nothing is overtly passionate about My Night At Maud’s. Jean-Louis marries his destiny, but not without a hint of foreboding – Maud re-enters at the end of the film during Jean-Louis and Francoise’s fifth year of marriage, which results in a cleverly implied revelation about Jean-Louis’ seemingly innocent wife…
My Night At Maud’s makes use of the French New Wave style, with hand-held cameras and a plot that grazes upon issues of importance without actually becoming bitter. It is incredibly realistic to be in the driver’s seat of Jean-Louis’ car; the camera allowing the viewer to bump along the tarmac and change gears, watch the houses pass beside the road and beep the horn. We see everything as if it is real life, nothing is omitted in order to produce a slick and idealistic narrative. My Night At Maud’s is undeniably stylish, shot in black-and-white and with its own personal rules of cinematography that allow us to be drawn into the footsteps and heartbeat of Jean-Louis.
Rohmer distracts us with his compelling discussions, whilst simultaneously investigating basic human behaviour without making his explorations apparent. Jean-Louis’ night with Maud tiptoes about rules of attraction, with the entire evening playing out like a non-fictional scenario – their body language and interactions are developed over the course of the evening; we are shown the entirety of their time together, and so we understand how each character’s emotions are shaped.
Jean-Louis Trintignant is undeniably ideal as Jean-Louis, somehow making scripted speech seem natural. His on-screen chemistry with Francoise Fabian as Maud is markedly exquisite - as she chain-smokes and prances around in a short sailor’s shirt, we can feel some unspoken emotion begin to flourish. There is a well articulated difference between Fabian and Marie-Christine Barrault who plays the blonde Francoise; Fabian’s dark features contrast strikingly with Barrault’s fairness on a physical level, but then the two females are equally distinct in their individual personas. While Fabian perfectly exhibits a sultry thinker, Barrault is able to flawlessly play the card of charming naivety.
Rohmer has produced an understated masterpiece, skilfully using references to Pascal’s wager to facilitate the questioning of life which underpins the entire dialogue. It is rare that a director is talented enough to execute an engaging script which is essentially without direction and yet which foregrounds the whole film. We watch the characters in conversation for the majority of the 110 minutes, but the entire scenario is accomplished in an outstandingly convincing fashion thanks to a combination of high quality writing and effortlessly believable acting.
My Night With Maud is like watching your own friends converse for an hour; it is not always the most captivating subject matter but you are happy to watch, boredom is out of the question because you are part of the scene, too. NM
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