15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
YOU SHALL NOT ..., April 17, 2000
This review is from: My Night At Maud's (DVD)
How to find the right words to make you want to discover french author/director Eric Rohmer ? I would lie if I'd say MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S is an action movie. It's not a boring arty work either. Eric Rohmer is a very peculiar case among french directors. He's interested in morals, in the deep psychology of his movies' characters, in literature and philosophical problems. Vast program, rich but not rebarbative at all.
MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S is the third of the six moral tales he shot in the sixties and early seventies. The action takes place in Clermont-Ferrand, in southern France. Jean-Louis Trintignant (leading actor of Lelouch's A MAN AND A WOMAN) is a catholic 34 years old man looking for a girl to marry. Observing a young blonde girl at the Mass celebration, he decides she will be the one.
His friend Antoine Vitez invites him to pass an evening at Françoise "MAUD" Fabian's place. Light dialogs become soon a conversation about the Grace, the Predestination, the Sin and the Faith. Antoine Vitez leaves and let the not-so puritan Trintignant alone with a Maud still chatting and lying in bed almost naked.
Will Trintignant succumb to the charm of Maud or be faithful to the blonde girl he hasn't had the chance to meet yet ? That's the moral point of the movie. MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S is a 1968 movie, shot in black and white with english subtitles you can't remove (!), that has won two Oscars. I sincerely hope you'll have the curiosity to take a look at it since 5 or 6 Rohmer's movies have hit the DVD market these last months, all of them being pure gems. Oh yes ! I forgot. MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S is one of these movies that can deeply change in you the way you approach movies.
Take the risk to consider MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S as a DVD for your library.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This film is so tight!, November 26, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: My Night At Maud's (DVD)
Sublime. To me, this stealthily thrilling film exploits both the living quality of a theatrical performance and the privileged intimacy that cinema offers -- close-ups, mobile perspectives, and so on. Rohmer's tale seems put together to resemble a peculiarly intrusive documentary, an impossibly close piece of observational cinema. Half the joy of experiencing his fiction stems from the convincing impression that one is (secretly) watching a group of interesting adults socializing spontaneously in the manner of their culture and class. The other half of one's pleasure lies in the awareness, as the film concludes, that an intricate and subtle structure has been unfolding and cleverly weaving the tale's elements together all along. Rohmer's film works on several levels, and is well worth viewing by the socially curious and the open-minded.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
5 Stars for Rohmer's Film; only 1 Star for Fox Lorber's DVD, February 21, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: My Night At Maud's (DVD)
First of all, I want to stress that there is siginifcant disjunction here between the quality of MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S as a film, and the dismal quality of the Fox Lorber DVD. Thus, my criticism is not addressed to the film itself, which, like every one of Rohmer's Six Moral Tales, I would highly recommend, but to the lackluster transfer from Fox Lorber. I am in full agreement with the reviewer who argued that the film itself deserves 5 stars, whereas the DVD itself offers nothing better than a vhs quality audio and video transfer (in fact, this trasfer is below the standards of many vhs releases). Moreover, as with their many Godard and Truffaut releases, Fox Lorber has marked only 6 chapter headings. Now how hard is it to bookmark a chapter heading? Of course, I suppose that would actually require taking some interest in the film itself, so as to gadge the appropriate moments to bookmark.
In sum, this DVD does not even have the advantage of convenient chapter options. It is a shame that a company who owns the rights to so many great films repeatedly releases such poorly engineered DVDs. There are, of course, exceptions (more recent titles, of few of the Truffaut releases, or Godard's "Vivre Sa Vie," for example). Nonetheless, I have come to expect from Fox Lorber below average video and audio quality, along with few special features, if any (even the director and actor videographies are often incomplete). Even though I own many DVDs from Fox Lorber, inspite of their mediocre quality, this is one issue that I cannot recommend. In fact, I first rented this film on DVD, but elected to purchase a...VHS copy, instead. MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S is a remarkably subtle, yet powerful, filmic treatment of infidelity and the complexity of human relationships. However, do not waste your money on this DVD release.
To cite one auspicious development, Criterion has acquired the rights to many foreign titles from Fox Lorber's new parent company, Wellspring, and there have been credible rumors that Criterion will be releasing special editions of several Rohmer titles, including My Night at Maud's. Thus, with any luck, this film will soon receive the DVD treatment it deserves. Until then, however, I recommend holding on to your vhs copies.
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