chez Maud and Conte d`hiver

Printed in England
309FCS, vim (1996),, 309-319
Textual
the case of Rohmer’s Ma nuit
chez Maud and Conte d’hiver
interplay:
TOM ENNIS*
Although separated by twenty-three years, there
are
two
films
by
Eric
Rohmer, Ma nuit chez Maud (1969) [Maud] and Conte d’hiver (1992)
[Hiver],’ which emerge as sharing a number of sources of inspiration in
addition to their similarities in plot. In an obvious way both of them are tales
of winter, (partly) set in provincial towns, and there are shots in Hiver which
are direct citations from Maud, such as those of decorated streets seen out of
car windscreens. On a deeper level, invocations of Pascal’s ’pari 12 provide a
backdrop to the contrast between distant ideal and available reality in the
realm of human relationships.
Rohmer’s characters are noted for their verbosity, but what sets these films
apart from the rest of his ceuvre is their representation of long conversations
on the different possible readings of literary texts (by Pascal, Forster and
Shakespeare).3 This conflicts with the decisive nature of the judgements in
much of Rohmer’s own film criticism in which he has admitted to defending
some directors ’par esprit de corps’ with his Cahiers du cin6ma colleagues,
citing Ophuls as an example.4 The logic behind Rohmer’s polemical
opinions appears to stem from his belief that ’the cinema is a privileged art
form because it most faithfully transcribes the beauty of the real world.’5
Documentary appears to achieve this (Flaherty’s Nanook of the North ’est le
’ Address for correspondence: Tom Ennis,
1
32
Galsworthy Road, Kingston KT2
7AS.
Ma nuit chez Maud is the fourth of the Six Contes moraux while Conte d’hiver is the second of
the Contes des quatre saisons, on which series Rohmer is currently working.
2
See Pascal, Pensées (Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1976), 114.
Conte de printemps (1990) does contain an ’intellectual’ conversation but the subject is
3
transcendental philosophy in general rather than a text by one author.
4
Interview in Cahiers du cinéma 323/4 (May 1981), 29.
5
This is how Colin Crisp describes Rohmer’s theoretical position. See Crisp, Eric Rohmer
Realist and Moralist (Bloomington and Indianapolis, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1988), 3.
310
plus beau des films’6) while literary adaptation does not (John Ford’s Moby
Dick ’n’était pas tant impossible qu’inutile’~). If we accept this premise, then
we will share Jefferson Kline’s surprise on finding that Rohmer, the director,
films images to coincide with a pre-existing story rather than inventing ’une
histoire a partir d’images tournees au bonheur de 1’instant Kline reaches
this conclusion in the light of an examination of the role of intertextuality in
Maud,9 pointing out that the narrator (Jean-Louis10) emerges as unreliable
through his clear screening out of a text which would make his
philosophical position very difficult to sustain. When Jean-Louis pages
through Calcul des probabilit6s before examining a copy of Pascal’s Pensées,
the screening out process ’deflects our reading away from a complete reading
of Pascal’ and particularly from Les Lettres provinciales, which are a direct
attack on Jean-Louis’s Jesuitical views.&dquo; Rohmer the image maker is revealed
as being just as unreliable as his narrator as he imposes his own version of
events on the images filmed rather than trusting to chance, thus while he
’wagers on the truth value of his own fictional universe’ there is no
guarantee that this will emerge as being the reality.&dquo; But is this as
incompatible with Rohmer’s theoretical position as it initially appears? A
close reading of his critical works reveals his recognition of the limits of
documentary and the problems faced by a film-maker who, in attempting to
depict the real, ’introduit bon gr6 mal gr6, la subjectivite dans la faiture’.13 In
contrast, in the case of a fiction film the camera ’s’installe au coeur des
choses et, par cette exactitude, les rend a la nature, quel que soit l’artifice qui
ait preside a leur mise en place’.14 Clearly there is less of a hiatus between
critic and film-maker than might first appear.
In the case of Maud, within the first ten minutes there are two insert shots
from Pascal’s Pens6es, one of its title page and another of an extract from the
’Article III: De la necessite du pari’. In this section, directly quoted from in
the course of the evening at Maud’s, Pascal uses a comparison with gambling
6
Eric Rohmer, ’Vanité que la peinture’ in Le Goût de la beauté
,
55.
[First published in Cahiers
du cinéma no.3
(June 1951)].
Rohmer, ’Leçon d’un
échec’ in ibid. (Paris: Cahiers du Cinéma/Éditions de l’Étoile, 1984),
[First published in Cahiers du cinéma no.67 (January 1957)].
8
See T. Jefferson Kline, Screening the Text: Intertextuality in the New Wave French Cinema
(Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 146. The quote is from
Rohmer, Six contes moraux (Paris: Editions de l’Herne, 1974), 8. Rohmer’s Le Rayon vert (1986) is a
rare example of him producing a story from images filmed as improvisation.
7
Eric
116.
9
See ibid.
119-47.
10
Although he is not named in the film we shall refer to him as Jean-Louis (Trintignant).
11
.,
Ibid
133.
12
.,
Ibid
147.
13
Eric Rohmer, ’Le Goût de la beauté’ in Le Goût de la beauté, op. cit., 86. [First
Cahiers du cinéma no.121
14
Ibid. 86.
(July 1961)].
published
in
311
in order to convince sceptics that their self-interest lies with
its attendant belief in God:
Christianity and
il n’est pas.’ Mais de quel cote pencherons-nous? (...) il faut
n’est pas volontaire: vous 6tes embarqu6. Lequel prendrezvous donc? Puisqu’il faut choisir, voyons ce qui vous int6resse le moins.
Vous avez deux choses a perdre: le vrai et le bien, et deux choses à
engager: votre raison et votre volonte, votre connaissance et votre
beatitude ; et votre nature a deux choses a fuir: 1’erreur et la misbre. (...)
Pesons le gain et la perte, en prenant croix que Dieu est. Estimons ces
deux cas: si vous gagnez, vous gagnez tout; si vous perdez, vous ne
’Dieu est,
ou
parier. Cela
perdez rien.&dquo;
a choice must be made on the subject of God’s
to take the most advantageous decision which (in
his opinion) is to believe in God. However, this will not lead to an instant
and total faith and so the prospective believer must follow the example of
those who went before: ’Suivez la mani6re par ou ils ont commence : c’est en
faisant tout comme s’ils croyaient ...’16 This pretence will lead to a
revelation, perhaps like that experienced by Pascal himself on 23 November
1654 which resulted in ’Oubli du monde et de tout, hormis Dieu’.17
Pascal argues that since
existence, then it is logical
In the course of their first drink together for fourteen years, Vidal, JeanLouis’s former school friend, claims that this text is of crucial importance for
Communists since their beliefs also depend on a ’pari’: that history has a
meaning rather than consisting of a random series of events. Even if there is
only a ten per cent chance of this being the case, the risk is worth taking
since it provides their lives with a purpose. Vidal’s words are based on a
recorded conversation with Antoine Vitez, who plays Vidal in the film, and
whose words Rohmer took as ’ceux d’un marxiste, bon ou mauvais marxiste,
cela importe peu’.18 Rohmer’s interviewers from the left-wing Cahiers du
cinema were very critical of this argument, claiming that ’pour Vitez, ce qu’il
dit dans le film fait qu’il n’est pas marxiste.’19 However, the concept of good
and evil is seen to be present in both Catholicism and Communism: JeanLouis and Vidal are hesitant in their respective beliefs. Pascal’s formula may
be seen here to be usurped, its very mathematical nature making this
possible. Ironically it is the Catholic Jean-Louis who is much less favourable
towards the ’pari’ and he explains: ’ce que je n’aime pas dans le pari, c’est
l’id6e de donner en 6change, d’acheter son billet comme a la loterie.’20 This
15
16
17
See Pascal, op. cit
. 114.
.,
Ibid
116.
., 43.
Ibid
18
Interview with Rohmer by Pascal Bonitzer, Jean-Louis Comolli, Serge Daney and Jean Narboni
in Cahiers du cinéma
, 219 (April 1970), 50.
19
50.
Ibid.,
20
, no.98 (December 1969), 19.
Quoted from the script of the film in Avant scène cinéma
Subsequent references to this are given in the text.
312
view of the Pens6es is
strengthened by the fact,
see
at
as mentioned above, that we
of
Cours
moderne
de calcul des probabilit6s
Jean-Louis looking
copy
before
the
insert
shots
from
Pascal’s
and
work,
Jean-Louis talks to Vidal
just
about calculating the probability of their meeting over a period of three
months. However, these hints at a probabilistic reading are in many ways
misleading since ’Le pari de Pascal ressemble plus a une devinette qu’a un
jeu ou une loterie (...). On se m6fiera donc de 1’expression &dquo;calcul des
probabilites&dquo; dans la mesure ou elle risque d’introduire (...) l’id6e d’un gain
a venir [et aussi ...]ce calcul n’existe pas encore a 1’epoque ou Pascal 6crit
son texte.’21 If we were to follow Jean-Louis’s personal opinions too closely
then our reading of Pascal could easily become a potentially misleading one
with an overemphasis on mathematical calculations. However, the camera
provides us with a distancing effect from the narrator’s point of view which
is evident from the start when we see Jean-Louis as he looks out of the
window. He is shown ’from behind in an angle that assumes his point of
view, yet stands just far enough behind him to enable the spectator to
establish a separate and evaluative position (...)’22 which later allows us to
discern a more probable reason for his dislike of Pascal: the latter’s lack of
flexibility on moral matters.
Choosing is important in ’le pari’ (’il faut choisir’) and for Jean-Louis this
comes almost at the beginning of the film and involves his decision to marry
Frangoise, the woman he sees during the mass. Here again Jean-Louis’s
divergence from Pascal is evident for the latter was very critical of those who
’eyed up’ women while at mass, one of the practices which the seventeentha
century Jesuits excused. Pascal quotes Escobar, one of his detractors, to show
how ridiculous he perceived their position to be: ’une meschante intention,
comme de regarder des femmes avec un d6sir impur, jointe a celle d’ouir la
Messe comme il faut, n’empesche pas qu’on n’y satisfasse.’23 The service is
initially filmed from a respectful distance until the ’Our Father’. There
follows a shot of Jean-Louis looking straight ahead and subsequently looking
down as Frangoise’s voice can be heard on the sound track: this is the first
sign of his attention being diverted. A reverse shot allows us to see her, also
looking ahead. However, the camera in both instances is positioned to the
left of the protagonist in question and while these shots appear to be from
their respective points of view, they are actually from the viewpoint of an
omniscient narrator. This is presented as an objective view of events,
although this narrator clearly wants us to be aware of the attraction between
the two characters.
21
Henri Gouhier, Blaise Pascal commentaires (Paris: Vrin, 1971), 282.
See Kline, op. cit. 129.
23
Pascal, Les Lettres provinciales, ed. H. F. Stewart (Manchester: Manchester
1951), 105. See Kline, op. cit. 136.
22
University Press,
313
The
is seen driving through the streets of
decorated
for
Clermont-Ferrand,
Christmas, and his voice-over tells us of his
determination: ’Ce jour-la, le lundi 21 d6cembre, l’id6e m’est venue,
brusque, precise, definitive,... que Frangoise serait ma femme’ (p.12). JeanLouis is not reliable in what he tells us directly, as we have seen in his
interpretations of Pascal, and what is evident in his version of events is the
almost total exclusion of an intellectual process leading to a choice: the
decision is instantaneous and there is no thought of going back on it. The
scene during the mass leads us to an awareness that twenty-four hours have
passed between idea and decision and while Jean-Louis may claim that his
life is being guided by luck which always allows him to make simple and
correct decisions (’Je ne veux pas dire que je choisis ce qui me fait plaisir,
mais il se trouve que c’est pour mon bien, mon bien moral’ (p.36)), he
actually spends much more time than he would care to admit on deciding
what he thinks will be best for himself. Pascal may assert that a choice must
be made since ’il faut parier’ but Jean-Louis endeavours to reduce the
element of risk through a mixture of belief in God and a careful weighing up
of the facts. His suspicion of Pascal emerges as centring on his own need for
a certainty which is clearly at odds with belief, for even Pascal admits that
he may be wrong.
Felicie, the heroine of Conte d’hiver, has an experience in Nevers
cathedral which similarly has an important effect on her life. She has lost
contact with her beloved Charles, who is also the father of her child Lise,
and five years later is torn between two men, Loic and Maxence. The
moment of choice is filmed in an even more unequivocal way than that of
Jean-Louis. Lise is fascinated with the Nativity and persuades her mother to
bring her to see it in the cathedral. The starting point for the scene, the crib
seen in close-up, fits perfectly into one of St. Ignatius’s examples of a
spiritual exercise which takes place ’devant les acteurs de la Nativite’ where
the meditator ’les regarde, les contemple et les sert dans leurs besoins (...)’.24
There are two close-ups of the child Jesus but the camera soon abandons
Lise and the sound of her feet against the ground is erased from the
soundtrack as the camera pans to follow her mother who initially stands and
then sits on the other side of the cathedral. There follows a point of view
shot of the altar, with closure provided through a final reverse shot of
Felicie’s face which indicates that it is not from the building itself that her
inspiration comes: she looks into the distance with an air of intense
concentration. At first it appears that God’s (self)revelation is revealed
through the spiritual exercise in a vision. Barthes, writing on St. Ignatius,
reminds us that there was a move at the end of the Middle Ages from hearing
24
following day, Jean-Louis
Roland Barthes, Sade Fourier Loyola (Paris:
Éditions
du Seuil, 1971), 70.
314
the most
important sense from the Catholic Church’s point of
initially, reflected here.&dquo;
a key factor of the revelation involves the retention
of the Medieval element of inspiration (sound) and, while Rohmer does not
employ a voice-over, we do become aware of Felicie’s thoughts in a way akin
to the ’presence flottante du sujet dans l’image’ described by Ignatius.26 This
is achieved through the soundtrack where a few notes from the opening
to
sight
as
view and this is, at least
In this film, however,
scenes between Felicie and Charles, are heard. This has a
clear resonance, given the very sparing use of non-diegetic music in
Rohmer’s films: we are ready to give it a special significance, in this case that
of a marker of memory. Felicie had taken a decision to move in with
Maxence and attempt to forget Charles but her experience in the church
leads to a renewal of her memory of the past with him and so she resolves to
hope for his return.
There is a difference in the audience’s perception of Felicie’s experience,
as opposed to that of Jean-Louis: she later describes what she felt in the
course of a conversation with Loic: ’j’ai vu ma pens6e.
Tous les
raisonnements que je faisais pour savoir si je devais partir, ou pas partir, je
les ai faits, en un eclair - et (...) j’ai vu ce que je devais faire, et j’ai vu que je
ne me trompais pas.’2’ She was able to read into her own soul and analyse
her feelings clearly - an event experienced by another of Rohmer’s heroines
in his Comedies et proverbes series. In Le Rayon vert (1986) Delphine waits
to witness the natural phenomenon of a green ray before deciding if she has
found her ideal partner. We are shown this ray to give substance to
Delphine’s belief and, in a similar fashion, Felicie’s recounting of a ’vision’
results in what Barthes calls ’une garantie realiste’ so that it cannot be
simply an hallucination.28 This contrasts with Jean-Louis who only provides
this information in the form of a voice-over and is misleading about the
time-scale of his revelation.
Felicie goes on to agree with Jean-Louis’s view of choice in that the final
decision should be self beneficial, for while initially she had chosen to live
with Maxence ’puisqu’il faut trancher’(p.19) from her moment of lucidity
she tells Loic ’j’ai vu qu’il n’y avait pas a choisir, que je n’etais pas obligee de
me decider pour quelque chose que je ne voulais pas vraiment’ (p.55). This
may appear to contradict Pascal, who tells us ’il faut choisir’, but she is in
fact choosing to wait for Charles and continues with her own reference to
’De la necessite du pari’ in using a similar argument to justify her belief in
music, used for the
25
26
27
Ibid., 69. Barthes is quoting from Ignatius.
See ibid., 70.
Quoted from the script in Avant scène cinéma,
references to this are indicated in the text.
28
Barthes, op. cit., 72.
no.414
(July 1992),
55.
Subsequent
page
315
Charles: ’si je le retrouve, ga sera une chose tellement... une joie
tellement grande, que je veux bien donner ma vie pour ga. D’ailleurs je ne la
gdcherai pas. Vivre avec 1’espoir, c’est une vie qui en vaut bien d’autres’
(p.55). Loic’s reaction is to point out the reference to Pascal, which is all the
more obvious to us given its use in the earlier film. This appears to contrast
the thought processes of Felicie and Loic: she thinks for herself in a
somewhat naive way while Loic needs the approbation of a great
philosopher in order to vindicate a point of view. In fact, he too reveals a
certain nai’vete akin to the ’penseurs politiques de notre temps (qui)
cherchent toujours, chez Stendhal, un echo de leur propre reflexion. Ils
refont un Stendhal revolutionnaire ou un Stendhal r6actionnaire au gr6 de
leurs passions. ’29 In both cases a text is being used to vindicate personally
held views.
Felicie has been talking about the role of decision-making in fulfilling her
desires and desire is also a key feature of Maud. Rene Girard describes this
emotion in these terms: ’On peut toujours le representer par une simple ligne
droite qui relie le sujet et l’objet (...). Au-dessus de cette ligne, il y a le
m6diateur qui rayonne a la fois vers le sujet et vers l’objet.’30 Jean-Louis’s
relationship with Maud, and Vidal’s role in bringing them together, are
examples of the rivalry between mediator and subject which is described by
Girard: ’le m6diateur desire lui-meme l’objet [et...]c’est m6me ce d6sir (...)
qui rend cet objet infiniment desirable aux yeux du sujet.’31 It is only when
the subject allows the unnamed other mediator (who facilitates the chance
meetings between Jean-Louis and Frangoise) to reign that the ’happy end’ is
possible. This benign force could be seen as God, but while Jean-Louis
certainly sees his decisions as being inspired, this is far from certain: a
couple whose relationship depends on the man’s lies about spending the
night with a woman hardly emerges as a religious example to follow.
Alternatively it could be quite simply his own feelings, or even prejudices: it
might be easier to ’control’ a nice Catholic girl than the intellectual Maud.
If we follow Girard’s description of desire, Loic emerges as both a
mediator and an object of desire, while it is only when Felicie follows her
own feelings, with again the possibility of a supernatural mediator at work,
that she apparently finds happiness. As in the case of Maud, though, the
quality of this happiness, as we shall see, is far from clear.
Both films involve at least one change in the object of desire, and the plot
traces the way in which the mediator influences the subject in order to bring
this about. Jean-Louis initially chooses to marry Frangoise but is temporarily
finding
29
René Girard, Mensonge romantique
Poche,
1961), 156.
30
16.
.,
Ibid
31
Ibid., 21.
et vérité romanesque
(Paris: Bernard Grasset/Le
Livre de
316
mesmerized by Maud only to return to his original choice, while Felicie
finds herself distracted by two men before she resolves to concentrate on the
missing Charles. The mediator may appear to be of a divine nature but in
fact seems closer to the (selfish?) desires of the subject and it is the merging
of the latter with the mediator which results in a resolution of the plot.
As we have seen, both of these films depict a Catholic man and, in the
light of the references to Pascal, it is important to see how they each
compare to Pascal’s ideal of Catholicism. Jean-Louis attends mass on a
regular basis and being a Catholic is a prerequisite for his future wife, while
Loic also attends mass and is prepared to defend his position against Edwige
and Felicie’s shared belief in reincarnation. However, both men fall short of
Pascalian demands: Jean-Louis admits that he does not want to become a
saint and happily lies on two occasions to his wife over his Nuit chez Maud,
while Loic is prepared to forgo his attendance at mass to be with Felicie (’Je
veux pas t’embeter avec Qa’ (p.60)) and has no qualms about living with a
woman before marrying her.
Even more important is the fact that both of these men (the only overtly
practising Catholics of Rohmer’s work) produce their own readings of Pascal
which are not necessarily accurate. We have already examined how JeanLouis does this and Loic’s interpretation is also questionable: ’Il [Pascal] dit
qu’en pariant pour l’immortalite, le gain est si 6norme que cela compenserait
la faiblesse des chances et que, meme si I’dme n’est pas immortelle, le croire
permet de vivre mieux que si on n’y croit pas’ (p.56). The ’pari’ is in fact
more on the existence of God and not the immortality of the soul and it is
precisely Pascal’s application of it which makes him original since the
analogy of a ’pari’ for explaining belief in life after death had already been
frequently used by a number of seventeenth-century Apologists such as
Simon and Caussin.32 Perhaps unwittingly, Loic has reduced Pascal to a pale
imitator of an existing tradition.
This apparent misreading of Pascal is echoed in the comments on another
text evoked at length in Hiver, E. M. Forster’s The Longest Journey.33 This is
important for the way in which it is discussed by Loic, Edwige and Quentin
and for the links between the film and the novel. We initially are in the
position of overhearing the conversation about it and so share Felicie’s point
of view. She has not read the book and contributes nothing to the debate and
it is likely that most members of a French audience would be in a similar
position, particularly given the fact that even its author admits that it ’is the
least popular of my [...]novels’.34 Its plot concerns Rickie who graduates
32
33
are
34
See John Cruickshank, Pascal; ’Pensées’ (London: Grant & Cutler, 1983), 47.
E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey (London: Penguin, 1988). Subsequent references to the novel
given in the text.
Ibid., ’Introduction’, lxvi.
317
from Cambridge with many hopes only to see them dashed one by one.35
Three points may be made about the discussion. Firstly, Edwige avoids
reading any symbolism into Rickie’s lameness, which certainly reflects
weakness and perhaps ’stands for Forster’s own homosexuality’.36 Secondly,
she argues that Rickie is not the most important character in the novel when
clearly he is, being present from start to finish as well as bearing the brunt of
events. Here the intellectuals are being ridiculed for those who know the
novel as they already have been in Edwige’s pompous opening comment to
F61icie: ’on est en pleine discussion’ (p.30). Finally, Quentin refers to the
opening of the novel where discussion centres on whether a cow exists
when no one is present to perceive it. This incursion into Berkeleian
idealism reflects Forster’s respect for the relative objectivity of George Moore
who argued that ’the sun and stars would exist if no one was aware of them
(...).’37 Felicie shares this belief: Charles will be steadfast in his desire even
if she wavers in her own. A similar assumption was made by Louise in
Rohmer’s Les Nuits de la pleine lune (1984) with disastrous consequences:
this hardly augurs well for the future of Felicie’s relationship, even if she is
reunited with Charles.
There are a number of similarities between novel and film, as when both
refer to the close links between humans and nature. Loic quotes from Victor
Hugo to show the latter’s belief in reincarnation into the natural world: ’Et,
sous ces 6paisseurs de mati6re et de nuit, / Arbre, bote, pave, poids que rien
ne souleve, / Dans cette profondeur terrible, une dme r6ve / Que fait-elle?
Elle songe a Dieu!’ (p.33)38 Rickie writes a short story about ’getting into
touch with Nature’ (p.71) which involves a man’s fianc6e who deserts him:
’Near the[ir] house is a little dell of fir trees, and she runs into it. He comes
there the next moment. But she’s gone. (...) She’s turned into a tree’ (p.71)
The title, The Longest Journey comes from Shelley’s Epipsychidion, the lines
being quoted by Rickie: ’With one sad friend, perhaps a jealous foe, / The
dreariest and the longest journey go’ (p.127). In this metaphor ’our life is our
longest journey, and the problem is our choice of companions (...).’39 This
directly echoes Felicie’s problem of choosing between Loic and Maxence
before she discovers that there is no choice to be made, or that it lies
elsewhere rather than between the two of them.
35
Rickie’s name is spelt ’Ricky’ in both the English subtitles and in the Avant scène script.
Ibid., Elizabeth Heine, ’Editor’s Introduction’, xviii.
See ibid., xv. Heine quotes from P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell
(Evanston and Chicago, Ill: Northwestern University Press, 1944), 11-12. This debate also refers to
the long philosophical tradition of Idealism. See for example St. Augustine, Confessions (London:
36
37
Classics, 1961), 221-5.
Penguin
38
The extract in question comes
l’infini’ and forms part of
a
from Hugo’s Les Contemplations (livre sixième) ’Au bord de
poem entitled ’Ce que dit la bouche d’ombre’. See Victor Hugo, Les
(Paris: Gallimard, 1973),
Contemplations
39
396-7.
Forster, op. cit., Editor’s Introduction, xxxiii.
318
The
opening idyll of Hiver may be compared to Rickie’s time in
Cambridge, particularly as described in the early chapters. He has not been
corrupted by Agnes, his wife to be, and retains an imagination. His tragedy is
that each successive person in whom he trusts - his mother, Agnes and
Stephen (his half-brother) - turn out to be real people and not the idols that
he wishes them to be. When he dies he has bitterly discovered this for
himself. When Rickie finds Stephen drunk, despite the latter’s promises to
remain sober, he says he has ’gone bankrupt (...) for the second time.
Pretended again that people were real’ (p.281). In the light of this he reflects
on his wife: ’little by little she would claim him and corrupt him (...)’ (p.282).
Rickie’s last words, after he is run over by a train while saving Stephen, are
to his aunt Mrs Failing: ’You have been right’ (p.282). This gives credence to
her final assessment of him as ’one who has failed in all he undertook; one of
the thousands whose dust returns to the dust, accomplishing nothing in the
interval’ (p.282). This intertext serves to undermine our belief in Felicie’s
future happiness, for although she idolizes Charles and her revelation in the
Cathedral leads her to bet on him, Pascal’s bet may be lost, and from the
comparison with Rickie the spectator is warned that Felicie may find herself
becoming equally bitter. She would have given up two relationships for a
man who could not live up to her image of him.
A misreading of another text occurs later on in Hiver in the course of a
discussion on Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, which Felicie and Loic have
just seen. This play recounts the story of King Leontes who orders his wife
Hermione to be killed when he suspects her of adultery with Polixenes, a
visiting king. Many years later a repentant Leontes is taken to see a
remarkably life-like statue of his dead wife. In the extract used in the film
this statue ’comes to life’, an issue about which Loic admits to being
dissatisfied: ’On ne sait pas si la statue s’anime par magie ou si la reine n’a
jamais ete morte’ (p.55), while Felicie has no problem with this, believing
that faith has brought the Queen back to life. Although during most of the
scene used in the film the audience is unaware of the fact that Hermione has
in fact been in hiding and the ambiguities put forward by Loic are indeed
present, it does become clear in the end that the King’s wife was saved and
hidden away for sixteen years. In fact she ’never has died’.4° Hermione
appears to come back to life and this is (metaphorically) what happens to
Charles. The link may be continued to The Longest Journey, for Rickie has
similar feelings about his dead mother: ’only one thing matters - that the
Beloved should rise from the dead’ (p.249).
40
The lack of ambiguity is made clear by J. H. P. Pafford in his introduction and notes for the
Arden Shakespeare edition of The Winter’s Tale (London: University Paperbacks, 1966), li, lxii,
159. This quotation is from 159. The statue whose heart beats is reminiscent of the lovers turned
into statues at the end of
Les Visiteurs du soir (Marcel Carné, 1942).
319
The misreading of Shakespeare’s play is natural on Felicie’s part for she
needs to believe in the possibility of being rewarded for waiting for Charles
if her ’roman-photo’ is to avoid becoming totally banal.41 However, we would
have expected the more intellectual Loic to realize the truth. Is it his love for
Felicie which allows him to see the possibility of a magical intervention?
The truth lies in the structure of the final section of the film which revolves
around the joint expectations of Felicie and the audience which lead to a
belief in the immanent return of Charles. This is signalled very clearly by
one key factor in the extract from The Winter’s Tale, the music. Almost
identical notes are used at two previous points in the film: firstly, during the
opening idyll in Brittany where it becomes associated with Felicie’s
happiness with Charles and later, as mentioned above, in the course of
Felicie’s revelation in Nevers cathedral. It is no surprise, therefore, that we
immediately associate its use in the discovery scene from Shakespeare with
a kind of magical return, especially given what appears to happen on stage.
It is precisely this possibility that is being ruled in by the two protagonists.
Rohmer has to make them misread the scene in order that the audience
becomes aware of the certainty that Charles will return: ’on est sur nous
aussi qu’elle va le [Charles] rencontrer, et Qa cree une esp6ce d’attente de et
dans chaque plan (...). ’42 This lends a special intensity to the final section of
the film.
Given the above examples of the use of this music, it would be natural to
assume that it would also be heard either when Charles does reappear or at
least at the end of the film. This singularly fails to happen, which implies
that Felicie’s happiness has more to do with searching than discovery: all
Charles can offer her at the end is the role of ’patronne’ in his restaurant, the
very word which was ’la goutte d’eau qui a fait d6border le vase’ (p.48) in
ending her relationship with Maxence. We may well wonder once again how
long the magic will last.
It is only by unravelling the different intertexts that a clearer intention
begins to emerge, though this too reveals a depiction of the world which is
far from straightforward. We have seen here how Maud and Hiver employ a
variety of texts to create a sense of ambiguity over the final formation of an
ideal couple (jean-Louis/FranQoise and Charles/Felicie). Rohmer goes
beyond the appending of meaning to documentary images, attaching a multilayered signification to fictional representations and thereby giving the lie to
those who believe that he has stayed with the ’normes de 1’esth6tique
classique’.43
41
The term ’roman-photo’ is used by Laurence Giavarini to describe the opening scene of Hiver
in ’Les Vies de Félicie’, Cahiers du cinéma
, 452 (February 1992), 21.
42
Alain Bergala interviewing Rohmer in Eric Rohmer (Studio 43 M.J.C. de Dunkerque, 1992),
140.
43
Marc
Cerisuelo, Jean-Luc Godard (Paris: Lherminier, 1989),
34.