ROHMER, ERIC

born April 4, 1920, Nancy, Fr. original name Jean-marie-maurice Scherer French motion-picture director and writer noted for his sensitively observed studies of romantic passion. Rohmer, who first earned an advanced degree in history and taught school for a short time, began his writing career in the mid-1940s. In 1957 he and Claude Chabrol coauthored the film study Hitchcock. He moved to Paris, where he began to write film criticism for French periodicals. He was a founding editor of La Gazette du Cinema in 1950, along with Franois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Jacques Rivette, and he became editor in chief of Cahiers du Cinema in 1957, quitting the New Wave publication when he became involved in a dispute in 1963. In 1950 Rohmer began making a series of short, fairly successful films. In 1959 he directed his first full-length feature; Le Signe du lion (The Sign of Leo). Rohmer next directed a series of six contes moraux, or moral tales, the first two of which were La Boulangre de Monceau (1962; The Baker of Monceau) and La Carrire de Suzanne (1963; Suzanne's Career). Both films were commercial failures, and Rohmer turned his attention to directing television documentaries for a time. Then in 1966 he filmed another of the moral tales: La Collectionneuse (The Collector), which achieved some critical esteem in Europe. It was not until Rohmer filmed Ma Nuit chez Maud (1968; My Night at Maud's), considered by most critics to be the centrepiece of the contes moraux, however, that he scored a commercial hit. It is the story of a puritanical engineer marooned in a snowstorm who takes refuge in Maud's apartment. Maud, an attractive divorce, tries to seduce him, but the engineer resists her efforts, and the two spend the night discussing intellectual matters. The film won critical acclaim and public acceptance in both France and the United States and was awarded the Prix Max Ophls. Rohmer followed his success with Le Genou de Claire (1970; Claire's Knee), and it won the best film of the year award at the San Sebastian Film Festival as well as both the Prix Louis-Delluc and the Prix Melies. He completed the series in 1972 with the release of L'Amour l'aprs-midi (Chloe in the Afternoon). The scripts were later published as Six Moral Tales (1977). In 1976 Rohmer filmed Die Marquise von O (The Marquise of O), a well-known short story, and it won the special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. His later films include Perceval le Gallois (1978; Perceval ) and La femme de l'aviateur (1981; The Aviator's Wife).