French new wave film director Eric Rohmer has died at the age of 89.
Rohmer made 24 films over a period of 50 years. It was the 1969 film My Night at Maud’s that garnered him international fame, as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced.
Rohmer’s films are noted for being almost actionless, structured around dialogue and the idea that people, their lives and relationships are unknowable. Films such as “My Night at Maud’s” (1969), “Claire’s Knee” (1970) and “Love in the Afternoon” (1972) belied their sexy titles as principal characters filled their angst-ridden nights with endless moralizing.
Rohmer, before he began making films, was a literature professor and was heavily influenced by literary works.
Rohmer was born Jean-Marie Maurice Schérer but took his stage name as an homage to actor and director Erich von Stroheim and the 19th-century English novelist Sax Rohmer.
View the trailer for ‘My Night At Maud’s’ below.