Product Details

• Actors: Anne Teyssèdre, Hugues Quester, Florence Darel, Eloïse Bennett, Sophie Robin
• Directors: Eric Rohmer
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: French
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• DVD Release Date: March 5, 2002
• Run Time: 107 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005UJY6
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #98,003 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "A Tale of Springtime" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

OscarÂ(r)-nominated* writer/director Eric Rohmer (Pauline at the Beach) delivers this 'splendid, engaging, delightful revelation (The Village View) that sparkles with humor andsizzles with romance. Heightened by the splendor of the French countryside, A Tale of Springtime is radiantly alive, blissfully awareand among the most beautiful and enlightening [films] in world cinema (Los Angeles Times)! The well-ordered life of Jeanne, a high school philosophy teacher, suddenly spins into disorder when a young stranger she meets at a party involvesher in a devilish scheme. Natacha, an adolescent pianist with a penchant for subtly playing her elders, invites Jeanne to her father's home...hoping to make a match of the two and send her father's current lover, Eve, packing. But when the tempestuous Eve arrives at every chance meeting between Jeanne and Natacha's father, fireworks of an entirely different sort erupt, and everyone is forced toexamine his or her own philosophies on love, relationships and other sordid affairs of the human heart. *1970: Story and Original Screenplay, My Night at Maud's

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A wonderfully entertaining French flick!, March 28, 2005

By 

Doctor Trance (MA, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: A Tale of Springtime (DVD)

Let me start by saying that if you don't like French films where there is no action and it's mostly just dialogue amongst the leads in a few different indoor/outdoor settings, then don't look here. However, if you find Eric Rohmer films, and French films that are very "talky" engaging, then this is one of the better ones.

The leads in this films all give wonderful performances and while I don't like every Rohmer film, I liked this one a lot. Even though it is all talking throughout, the conversations and script kept me intrigued and I found the movie flew buy in a good way (normally talky pictures seem to drag on and on).

The plot is basically a beautiful 18-year-old French girl (the redhead on the DVD cover) meets a late 20's/early 30's girl at a party where they are both bored and become friends. The 18-year-old despises her late 30's/early 40's father's girlfriend and believes that if she puts her new friend togther with her dad, he will fall for her and forget his fiancee. That's basically it, but the characters keep you focused and quite interested in their simple interactions.

The settings are plain, but rather nice-looking French decor. Even though it's a late 80's film, I didn't see much in it to make you think you were in that time frame. A film that looks very fresh today. Also, the MGM-World Films line does a much better job of the transfer than the rest of Rohmer's films, which are done by the folks at Fox/Lorber. The picture quality is far superior and you can change and remove the subtitles (unlike the Lorber films which are burned in).

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A lifetime's exploration, May 29, 2010

By 

Phillip Kay (Sydney) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tales of Four Seasons (DVD)

NOTE: This is a review of the four Tales of the Four Seasons, currently available in Amazon.co.uk's catalog though Amazon.com doesn't appear to be aware of it. It also includes an overview of Rohmer's non series films. It is for real fans of Eric Rohmer's movies, who will want to disagree with me.

WHEN ERIC ROHMER died earlier this year there was a host of tributes, much talk of his 'talky' films and remarks about watching paint dry. My tribute was to watch his films again, including the ones I had not seen, and review them. I have a very strong attachment for some of his films, and have had one for 20 years. Before discussing his films however I should add a bit of context.

Rohmer was a writer first of all, a novelist, then a film theorist. He learnt his craft in television as a maker of documentaries. Many of his film scripts would work as plays, and I don't know why no-one has staged My Night at Maud's. Rohmer was a literary man, and some of his films are based on the work of other writers, such as Kleist and Chrétien de Troyes. He helped form a group that added enormous energy to French cinema, la nouvelle vague, but paradoxically he had a great admiration for some of the directors that movement swept arrogantly aside, such as Marcel Carné. In his astonishingly vivid creation of landscape and context for his films' characters, Rohmer has always reminded me of Georges Simenon, one of the greatest 20th century French writers and a major influence on French cinema. And one of the precursors of la nouvelle vague was Jean Eustache, creator of La maman et la putain, a four hour film of conversations between Jean-Pierre Leaud and Bernadette Lafont and Françoise Lebrun which I think one of the greatest French films ever made. Rohmer was of course a good businessman, able to produce small budget/films-on-a-shoestring that made tenable his career, as did many of la nouvelle vague directors, and Ingmar Bergman and Satyajit Ray as well. Most of all he was a moralist, someone who felt strongly that to live well one has to have values that are worthwhile, and his films are designed to make us think of those values, though presented in an unobtrusive and utterly charming way.

Great French film directors? In my view they include Marcel Carné, Coline Serreau, Jean Eustache, Alain Resnais, Rene Clement, Louis Malle, Jean Renoir, Jacques Audiard, Claude Sautet ' and Eric Rohmer.

Finally, talk of literary influences and film movements should not obscure the fact that Rohmer had a command over many of the traditional elements of film making. Much has been said of his evocation of landscape, and of figures within that landscape. He is known for his mastery of set design and colour, and rarely needed an art director. He worked hard with his framing and cutting to create a natural effect, a kind of candid camera effect, that took hours and sometimes years of planning. And he was probably one of the best directors of actors ever, getting marvellous performances from inexperienced actors again and again. Because he wasn't flamboyant or technically intrusive, as Godard was for instance, there are some who don't notice this competence (hence the 'nothing happens, people just sit around and talk' kind of comment). In fact Rohmer was technically innovative right through his career, more so than any other French director. And the this-is-not-a-film ambiance he created is just as deconstructive as Godard's this-is-a-film approach.

So on to the films of Eric Rohmer, who asks you, not 'what if an evil force was trying to control the universe and only one man could save humanity from a fate worse than death', but 'what if a group of people were able to express their thoughts and feelings, in an elegant and subtle language, how accurate would they be in describing their real situation, and what would we learn about human nature by listening to this?'

The Four Seasons
Rohmer liked to film in series, and his last one was Tales of the Four Seasons. Although filmed when Rohmer was in his 70s, these films show no falling off, and in fact include one of his best films, still using the diary cue cards that make you think it's a home movie, and still eliciting great performances from unknown actors.

A TALE OF SPRINGTIME (Conte de printemps) 1990
A Tale of Springtime is a slice of life about two couples in unsatisfactory relationships, and the daughter of one of them who ineptly tries to improve the situation through a bit of matchmaking. It's extremely naturalistic, and the story has no real beginning, no resolution to the events portrayed, and no real ending. It's just like my life in this respect, in fact, and perhaps like yours.

Many of Rohmer's film making characteristics are here: the unobtrusive camera work, the subtle and assured use of colour, the script which deftly reveals personality traits in small actions and everyday phrases. The central character is a musician as well as a matchmaker, and music plays a part in the story, and is also played on the soundtrack, which is rare to hear in a film by Rohmer.

Where the film falls down in my opinion is with the actors. Though the script is good (but not great), and the actors present it well, none of them are Rohmer actors, which means they are not natural and at ease. I was never in doubt throughout the film I was watching a performance. While it didn't stop me enjoying the film, I never found it involving.

A WINTER'S TALE (Conte d'hiver) 1992
A Winter's Tale is a moving account of how a young woman comes to live the story of the Shakespeare play, with a little encouragement from Pascal. These aren't musty cultural figures from the past for Rohmer but relevant commentators on everyday living. A cautionary tale that teaches that if you want to receive a blessing you must first be in a state of grace.

The film is built around the character of Félicie, played by Charlotte Véry. If you can fall for her, the film is absorbing: I thought her portrayal brilliant, one of the best acting jobs in any Rohmer film (if you haven't seen a film by Rohmer, that means it's world class). Félicie has a holiday romance that's with the love of her life, loses touch with the man, has a daughter, and lives in Paris in an uneasy relationship with two men. She loves both men, but there's love, and there's love. Félicie comes to see, through chance encounters and conversations with friends, that if you want something to happen you have to believe it will. In a conclusion that cynics will deplore, she finds that miracles happen, but only to people who believe they exist.

Another atypical Rohmer film with a musical score. And, as usual, superb realisations of place, streets, apartments and shops of Nevers, Paris, with characters seemingly always on the move in trains and buses. It has part of a good performance in French of The Winter's Tale by Shakespeare as well. Félicie is inarticulate, unsure what she wants, irritating in her indecision, she makes mistakes, acts stupidly and hurts the ones who love her, but she's a lover who keeps that love alight in her heart, and anyone who's ever loved will surely understand what she's going through before her epiphany.

Rohmer, now aged over 70, has produced yet another example of the Rohmer paradox: a literate, well balanced construction with characteristics of a stage play, played in superb naturalistic style by gifted actors, and filmed and edited using effectively and with great skill all the resources of cinema. For some reason his films seem difficult for viewers who accept unhesitatingly that a man can blow up a building with a hand gun, and prompt critics to apologise for pointing out his merits as a director. I think he'll be disparaged, after the obituaries settle, but will come back as one of the masters of cinema, when his colleagues of the New Wave have all been forgotten. And because he examines you and me he'll always be uncomfortable for viewers who want to live forever in never-never land. So be it.

A TALE OF SUMMER (Conte d'été) 1996
A Tale of Summer looks at the other side of summer romance to the lyrical beauty that glows from the beginning of Rohmer's previous seasonal tale, Conte d'hiver. Here a young man, on holiday in Brittany, has not one but three romances, and finds it necessary to put his song writing career first, for which his feelings for the three girls provide inspiration, because they all present him with problems he can't solve.

Now in most films there's a plot, and the plot is always about possession, of land, of money, of a woman. Because the story is melodramatic, it is always unrealistic. Rohmer attempts something much more ambitious in his films, to portray real feelings in real people, in all their ambiguity and state of flux.

In A Tale of Summer it's probably this emotional current running through the gestures and actions of all the characters that is the real subject of the film, and it is shown in its ambiguity and state of constant change. It's something we're not comfortable with, preferring to give labels such as 'love', 'friendship' and so on to what is after all the motor that drives us through life, and is frequently unknowable and disquieting.

Gaspard, played convincingly by Melvil Poupaud as a gangling, introverted and sensitive misfit who pours his emotion into his songwriting, mets Margot, who's an ethnologist and part time waitress. Margot is played by the wonderful Amanda Langlet from Pauline at the Beach, an actress seemingly born to act in Rohmer films but who was only in three. These two develop a friendship, which is 'more important than love', and we see it mutate slowly into love, with attendant jealousy,... Read more ›

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars MGM forgot something essential ..., May 12, 2010

By 

Vlad (Serbia) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: A Tale of Springtime (DVD)

I`ll be very short and this is in regards for the quality of the dvd, not the great movie. MGM simply managed to blew it. this is 2002. release and they somehow forgot to make it enhanced for 16:9 TVs. shame on them. the 3 rating is there just as I had to put something.