My Night at Maud's

Director: Éric Rohmer

1969 / 111min / DCP

“Sometime in the ’80s, I saw this movie at the Bleecker Street Cinema and was struck by the minimal precision, rhythm, pace, and shot choices, which reflect the tone and style of this film that is 99% dialogue. I admired the editor Cécile Decugis, who had also edited Breathless (1960), which was wildly different in style yet equally sensitive to its essence.” —Christopher Tellefsen, ACE

Rohmer’s first feature-length entry in his “Six Moral Tales” series (following The Bakery Girl of Monceau and Suzanne’s Career) stars Jean-Louis Trintignant as a conscientious Catholic bachelor who is sorely tempted when he meets charming divorcée Françoise Fabian. Néstor Almendros’s black-and-white photography crystallizes the atmosphere of a damp Christmastime in mid-1960s central France while Rohmer exactingly depicts middle-class morals buckling under pressure as the sexual revolution arrives in the provinces.

Distributor: Janus Films

Introduction by editor Christopher Tellefsen, ACE on Friday, December 12th