Friday, January 23, 2026
Daisy Fuentes (1966-)
Daisy Fuentes (born November 17, 1966)[1] is an American model, television host, actress and former weather presenter.[2] Fuentes became MTV's first Latina VJ (signed to MTV and MTV Latin America simultaneously) and Revlon's first Latina spokesperson to be signed to a worldwide contract.[3][4]
Early life and education
Daisy Fuentes was born on November 17, 1966, in Havana, Cuba, to a Cuban father and Spanish mother.[2] In 1969, when Fuentes was three years old, her family fled the country to escape Fidel Castro's regime[2] and moved to Madrid, Spain.[5] Four years later, she moved with her family to Harrison, New Jersey, US, where she attended Harrison High School, was voted homecoming queen and "best looking", and graduated in 1984.[6] An aspiring hairstylist, she enrolled in cosmetology school with dreams of opening her own salon.[7] Later, she enrolled at Bergen Community College where she majored in communications.[citation needed]
Career
While still a college student, Fuentes was hired to present the weather at WNJU-TV 47, the local affiliate of Spanish-language TV network, Telemundo. Shortly after, Fuentes took a position with New York's Univision affiliate WXTV-TV 41 where in addition to being the weather anchor, she reported for the evening news.[4]
In 1988, in addition to her weather duties, Fuentes hosted MTV Internacional,[8] a one-hour Spanish language music show that aired in Latin America and the U.S. on Telemundo Network which made her well known in the Spanish-language TV market in the U.S. and Latin America. Fuentes joined MTV in 1993, becoming the first Latina VJ in the U.S., while also hosting shows for MTV Latin America. While at MTV Fuentes was also a host of the fashion and modeling series, House of Style. She became one of that network's more popular hosts and soon was courted by companies to be a spokesmodel.[9][10] She later landed a role on the ABC soap opera Loving. Fuentes appeared on shows such as Dream On, The Larry Sanders Show, Ghostwriter and Cybill. From 1994 to 1995 she hosted her own talk show, Daisy, on CNBC. She was the co-host of America's Funniest Home Videos, along with John Fugelsang, from 1998 to 1999 making her the only female host of the show. She hosted the ALMA Award, Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, the 1998 World Music Awards, the 1999 Billboard Latin Awards, and the Miss Teen USA, Miss USA, and Miss Universe pageants. She guest-starred in the TV series Queen of Swords episode "Running Wild" in 2000, as well as on Baywatch. Also in 2000, she starred opposite Steve Borden (professional wrestler 'Sting') in the made-for-TV movie Shutterspeed.
Fuentes has appeared on many magazine covers and has starred in television advertisements for Revlon, Pantene, American Express, M&M's and others. She was the first Mind, Body, Spirit Superstar, which was created to generate awareness of top women's health causes and work to promote change.[11] In 2005, Fuentes appeared on the three page cover of People en Español's "50 most beautiful" women.[12] Fuentes has hosted numerous TV shows and specials.[13][14]
In 2004 Fuentes successfully launched the first clothing line bearing her name.[15]
She made her debut in the haircare category with an all-natural hair care line called Daisy Fuentes Style Pro in March 2009 to mass retailers.[7][16] Her workout game for the Wii, Daisy Fuentes Pilates, was released in August 2009.[9][17]
In early 2010s, Fuentes sold about $300 million a year of her branded goods, including hair care, fragrances, clothing, sunglasses, and accessories at Kohl's department stores.[18]
Fuentes signed a prescription-eye wear licensing deal with Zyloware for a women's Latina-driven collection of prescription glasses.[18]
Currently, Fuentes is co-presenter of La Voz Kids on Telemundo,[19] the Spanish-language TV version of the show The Voice with kids and judges Paulina Rubio, Prince Royce, and Roberto Tapia.
Fuentes offered relationship advice on the "Matty's Dating Advice Corner" segment of the Fantasy Focus podcast with Matthew Berry.[20][21]
Her fashion brand's current parent company Nine West Holdings filed for bankruptcy in 2018.[22]
Philanthropy
In addition to her work as an actress and model, Fuentes has become actively involved in charity, helping raise money for breast cancer research and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Daisy Fuentes speaks often in support of charities including the March of Dimes and Starlight Children's Foundation.[23][24] Fuentes has been the celebrity chairman for the annual St. Jude Angeles & Stars gala in Miami since its debut in Miami more than 7 years ago, raising millions of dollars for this organization.[25] In 2007, Fuentes worked for Girls On the Run, a non-profit prevention program that encouraged preteen girls to develop self-respect and healthy lifestyles through running.[11] Fuentes hosted "A New Leaf" on NBC Saturday mornings in 2019, sponsored by Ancestry.com. "A New Leaf" followed everyday people on the cusp of key life inflection points, using family history, genealogy and sometimes DNA analysis to help guide them on their journey of self‑discovery. Fuentes has also worked with many breast cancer awareness causes such as the Revlon / UCLA Women's Breast Cancer Research program. She received an award at The Wellness Community West Los Angeles Tribute to the Human Spirit Awards dinner for her commitment to spreading breast cancer awareness, particularly in the Latino community.[26]
Personal life
Fuentes considers Harrison, New Jersey, to be her home, even though her parents left New Jersey for Miami.[27]
Fuentes was married to actor and model Timothy Adams from 1991 to 1995. She met Luis Miguel when she interviewed him in 1995; the pair dated for three years before breaking up in 1998.[28] She went on to date singer/songwriter Matt Goss, and he moved into her Hollywood Hills home, and they were engaged in 2003 but did not marry and broke off the relationship in January 2010.[29]
Fuentes started dating singer/songwriter/producer Richard Marx in August 2013. On December 23, 2015, Fuentes and Marx married.[30]
Sherri Talk Show
Sherri is an American syndicated daytime talk show hosted by actress and comedian, Sherri Shepherd.[1] The show premiered on September 12, 2022, and is distributed by Debmar-Mercury, with the Fox Television Stations as its major affiliate base.[2]
Production
Sherri is filmed live in Chelsea Studios in New York, with two tapings a day.[3][4] The series serves as a de facto replacement and placeholder for The Wendy Williams Show, for which Shepherd served as an interim host in much of the last portion of the thirteenth season, which showed its lowest ratings; due to personal and medical issues involving Williams.[5] Much of the production team for Wendy thus carried over to Shepherd's show, along with its existing studio re-configured with a new set design.[6] In January 2023, the series was renewed for its second and third seasons through 2025.[7] On March 20, 2025, it was renewed for a fourth season.[8]
Awards and nominations
| Year | Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2023
|
54th NAACP Image Awards | Outstanding Talk Series | Sherri | Won | [9] |
| Daytime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Host | Sherri Shepherd | Nominated | ||
| Outstanding Daytime Promotional Announcement | Sherri | Nominated | |||
| Outstanding Hairstyling and Makeup | Nominated | ||||
| Outstanding Costume Design/Styling | Nominated | ||||
2024
|
People's Choice Awards | The Daytime Talk Show | Nominated | ||
| 55th NAACP Image Awards | Outstanding Talk Series | Nominated | |||
| Outstanding Host in a Talk or News/Information (Series or Special) - Individual or Ensemble | Sherri Shepherd | Won | |||
| Daytime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Hairstyling and Makeup | Sherri | Nominated | ||
| Outstanding Costume Design/Styling | Nominated | ||||
2025
|
56th NAACP Image Awards | Outstanding Talk Series | Nominated | ||
| Outstanding Host in a Talk or News / Information (Series or Special) | Sherri Shepherd | Nominated |
Le Signe Du Lion (The Sign of Leo) (1959/1962)
Le Signe du lion (The Sign of Leo) is a black and white French drama film directed by Éric Rohmer, which was filmed on location in Paris in the summer of 1959 but not released until May 1962,[1] and is not among his Six Moral Tales.[2][3] It is his first full-length work. Along with The 400 Blows and À Double Tour by Claude Chabrol, who produced The Sign of Leo, it counts as one of the first films of the French New Wave.[3]
The title refers to the Zodiac sign of Leo, under which the protagonist says he was born, and much of the plot revolves around notions of luck and fate. The penniless Pierre believes he has inherited a fortune but, when told it went to a cousin, sinks into indigence and despair. Then he is found by a friend who says the cousin has died and Pierre has really inherited the fortune.[3]
The film was not a commercial success[4] and for eight years afterwards Rohmer concentrated on short films and on his work at the influential film magazine Cahiers du cinéma.
Plot
In early summer in Paris, the would-be composer or architect, American by nationality, Peter Wesselrin, commonly known as Pierre, learns that his rich aunt has died. Expecting a substantial legacy, he borrows a large sum from his closest friend, the journalist Jean-François, and throws a celebratory party for everybody he knows. There, while playing his violin sonata, a work in progress, he is given notice that he is to be evicted. However, as he explains to his friends, he is always lucky because he is a Leo.
A few weeks later, Jean-François tells friends he cannot find Pierre, who has been moving between cheap hotels. Then he hears that the aunt's wealth was left entirely to a cousin but, still unable to contact Pierre, has to take an assignment overseas. By August, all of Pierre's friends have left for their holidays and he is selling his possessions in order to have enough to eat.
Evicted from his last hotel, he has to live rough. Hearing that a smuggler is looking for couriers, he walks a long way through the heat, only to find that even the crooks are on vacation. He ruins his trousers by spilling tinned sardines on them, his shoes are disintegrating and, when he steals some food, is caught and beaten. Homeless, hungry, unshaven and dirty, he has reached bottom. In the end, he survives by help from another down-and-out called Toto, who begs money from tourists as a street entertainer.
On returning to Paris, Jean-François tries to find his friend, going from hotel to hotel. At one, he is given a letter sent to Pierre by a lawyer, which says that the cousin from Karlsruhe has died in an accident and Pierre is now the sole heir to his aunt's wealth. Unable to contact Pierre, Jean-François tells the story to the press, who print the story of the tramp who has inherited a fortune. One evening, outside a café where Jean-François is sitting, Pierre starts playing his sonata on a borrowed violin. Recognising the music, Jean-François is able to give his friend the news that will change his life. Abandoning Toto, who saved his life, Pierre invites all his old friends to a celebratory party.
Cast
- Jess Hahn : Pierre Wesselrin
- Michèle Girardon : Dominique Laurent
- Van Doude : Jean-François Santeuil
- Paul Bisciglia : Willy
- Gilbert Edard : Michel Caron
- Paul Crauchet : Fred
- Stéphane Audran : The hotel manager
- Jean Le Poulain : Toto
- Françoise Prévost : Hélène
- Marie Dubois : The girl at the café
- Jean-Luc Godard : The melomane
- Jean-Pierre Melville : A costumer
- Alain Resnais : A costumer
- Macha Méril : The blond at the 14th July
Production
It is shot in a wider 1.66 aspect ratio, unlike the 1.37 Academy ratio of almost all Rohmer's other films, and has an intermittent musical score, which is rare in his work. Though he normally wrote his films, in this case he is only credited with the story and the often barrack-room dialogue is by Paul Gégauff.[5] Unlike almost all his work, the plot revolves around three men, with women being relegated to supporting characters. A Nouvelle Vague characteristic was to include cameos for fellow directors and favourite actors, and consequently this film features Jean-Luc Godard, Stéphane Audran, Marie Dubois and Macha Méril.
Reception and influence
Though praised by other members of the Nouvelle Vague, including Jean-Luc Godard, who put it on his top ten for 1962,[6] it was slow to reach the English-speaking world, not being screened until 1966 in the UK and 1970 in the United States.[4]
A commentator noted how "the film is littered with painful moments" and that "with its depiction of one man's long physical and spiritual decline, Le Signe Du Lion recalls the great naturalist novels of Émile Zola as well as the works of American realists such as Theodore Dreiser. It marks Rohmer out as one of the most literary of New Wave directors - always devoting particular attention to his characters' complex emotions and inner thoughts."[4]
Another critic wrote that the film is "also a precise, poetic documentary on Paris, with the city turning into a stone prison that gradually crushes resistance until the musician suffers total moral and physical disintegration."[3]
Rainer Werner Fassbinder paid homage to it in 1966 with his first short film, Der Stadtstreicher.[7]
Lola (1961)
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Lola is a 1961 romantic drama film written and directed by Jacques Demy (in his feature directorial debut) as a tribute to director Max Ophüls, described by Demy as a "musical without music".[2][3] Anouk Aimée stars in the title role. The film was restored and re-released by Demy's widow, French filmmaker Agnès Varda.
The names of the film and title character were inspired by Josef von Sternberg's 1930 film The Blue Angel, in which Marlene Dietrich played a burlesque performer named Lola Lola.
Plot
In the seaside French town of Nantes, a young man, Roland Cassard, is wasting his life away until he has a chance encounter with Lola, a woman he knew as a teenager before World War II, who is now a cabaret dancer. Although Roland is quite smitten with Lola, she is preoccupied with Michel, who, seven years earlier, had got her pregnant before abandoning her. Also vying for Lola's heart is American sailor Frankie, whose affection Lola does not return.
Struggling for work, Roland gets involved in a diamond-smuggling plot with a local barber. Cécile, a 13-year-old girl, crosses paths with Roland; in many ways she reminds him of Lola, whose real name is also Cécile. In the end, Michel returns to Nantes, apparently very successful and hoping to marry Lola, just as she is leaving for another job in Marseille. She goes away with Michel as she always said she would.
Cast
- Anouk Aimée - Lola
- Marc Michel - Roland
- Jacques Harden - Michel
- Alan Scott - Frankie
- Elina Labourdette - Madame Desnoyers
- Annie Dupéroux - Cécile Desnoyers
Critical reception
Lola received moderate reviews from critics. Chicago Reader's Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote it was "among the most neglected major works of the French New Wave" and "in some ways [Demy's] best feature."[4]
Variety noted that "the mixture of melodrama, satire and poetics does not entirely jell. It is offbeat, with shafts of tender feeling and truth. But trying to touch on too many subjects makes the film uneven. Anouk Aimee has a pathetic quality as the mythomaniacal dancer who finally finds happiness, while Marc Michel is properly aimless as the boy. Lensing has the proper gray quality for this pleasant, unusual pic."[5]
Travis Hooper of Film Freak Central gave it three-and-a-half out of four stars, stating that he believed that it "doesn't have the intellectual rigour of those other films". He went on to write that it "is stronger for feeling, showing that we need more than the confirmation of the worst if we intend to make it through our lives intact."[6]
Not Just Movies gave Lola an A rating, mostly for Demy's "New Wave-cum-classical style", which "creates a self-contained world that gives a softly lit haze to reality as characters constantly aim for each other and miss, sometimes passing within mere inches of each other before carrying on or being redirected."[7]
Wong Kar-Wai cited Lola as a primary influence on his film Chungking Express (1994), in inspiring that film's second half.[8]
Awards and nominations
- 1963 BAFTA – Nominated for Best Film from Any Source and Best Foreign Actress for Anouk Aimée
- 2001 New York Film Critics Circle Awards – Won the Special Award (also for the re-release of Demy's second film Bay of Angels)
Jacques Demy (1931-1990)
Jacques Demy (French: [ʒak dəmi]; 5 June 1931 – 27 October 1990) was a French director, screenwriter and lyricist. He appeared at the height of the French New Wave alongside contemporaries like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. Demy's films are celebrated for their visual style, which drew upon diverse sources such as classic Hollywood musicals, the plein-air realism of his French New Wave colleagues, fairy tales, jazz, Japanese manga, and the opera. His films contain overlapping continuity (i.e., characters cross over from film to film), lush musical scores (typically composed by Michel Legrand) and motifs like teenage love, labor rights, chance encounters, incest, and the intersection between dreams and reality. He was married to Agnès Varda, another prominent director of the French New Wave. Demy is best known for the two musicals he directed in the mid-1960s: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967).
Career
After working with the animator Paul Grimault and the filmmaker Georges Rouquier, Demy directed Lola, his first feature film, in 1961, with Anouk Aimée playing the eponymous cabaret singer. The Demy universe emerges here: Characters burst into song (courtesy of composer and lifelong Demy-collaborator Michel Legrand); iconic Hollywood imagery is appropriated, as in the opening scene with the man in a white Stetson in the Cadillac; plot is dictated by the director's fascination with fate and stock themes of chance encounters and long-lost love; and the setting, as with many of Demy's films, is the French Atlantic coast of his childhood, specifically the seaport town of Nantes.
La Baie des Anges (The Bay of Angels, 1963), starring Jeanne Moreau, took the theme of fate further, with its story of love at the roulette tables.
Demy is perhaps best known for his original musical Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964), with a score by Legrand. The whimsical concept of singing all the dialogue sets the tone for this tragedy of the everyday. The film also sees the emergence of Demy's trademark visual style, shot in saturated supercolour, with every detail—neckties, wallpaper, Catherine Deneuve's bleached-blonde hair—selected for visual impact. Roland Cassard, the young man from Lola (Marc Michel) reappears here, marrying Deneuve's character. Such reappearances are typical of Demy's work. Kurt Vonnegut was a huge fan of Les Parapluies, writing in private correspondence: "I saw The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which I took very hard. To an unmoored, middle-aged man like myself, it was heart-breaking. That's all right. I like to have my heart broken."
Demy's subsequent films never quite captured audience and critical acclaim the way Les Parapluies did, although he continued to make ambitious and original dramas and musicals. Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967), another whimsical-yet-melancholic musical, features Deneuve and her sister Françoise Dorléac as sisters living in the seaside town of Rochefort, daughters of Danielle Darrieux. It was shot in color widescreen CinemaScope and featured an Oscar-nominated musical score as well as dance appearances by Gene Kelly and West Side Story's George Chakiris.
In 1968, after Columbia Pictures gave Demy a lucrative offer to shoot his first film in America, he and his wife, film director Agnès Varda, moved to Los Angeles briefly. Demy's movie was a naturalistic drama: 1969's Model Shop. Lola (Anouk Aimée) reappears, her dreams shattered, her life having taken a turn for the worse. Abandoned by her husband Michel for a female gambler named Jackie Demaistre (Jeanne Moreau's character from Bay of Angels), Lola is scrounging to make enough money to return to France and her child by working as a nude model in a backdoor model-shop on the Sunset Strip. She runs into an aimless, young architect (Gary Lockwood), who navigates the streets of Los Angeles; like Lola, he is looking for love and meaning in life. Model Shop is a time capsule of late-1960s Los Angeles and documents the death of the hippie movement, the Vietnam draft, and the ennui and misery that results from broken relationships. This bleakness and decided lack of whimsy—uncharacteristic for Demy—had a large amount to do with Model Shop's critical and commercial failure.
Peau d'Âne (Donkey Skin, 1970) was a step in the opposite direction as a visually extravagant musical interpretation of a classic French fairy tale which highlights the tale's incestuous overtones, starring Deneuve, Jean Marais, and Delphine Seyrig. It was Demy's first foray into the world of fairy tales and historical fantasia, which he explored in The Pied Piper and Lady Oscar.
Although none of Demy's subsequent films captured the contemporary success of his earlier work, some have been reappraised: David Thomson wrote about "the fascinating application of the operatic technique to an unusually dark story" in Une chambre en ville (A Room in Town, 1982).[citation needed] L'événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la lune (1973) ("A Slightly Pregnant Man") is a look back at the pressures of second-wave feminism in France and the fears it elicited in men. Lady Oscar (1979), based on the Japanese manga series The Rose of Versailles, has been discussed and analyzed for its queer and political subtext (the title character is born female, her father raises her as a male so she can get ahead in 18th-century French aristocracy, and she eventually falls in love with her surrogate brother, a working-class revolutionary).
Parapluies de Cherbourg has been color-restored twice from original prints by Demy. In 2014, The Criterion Collection released a boxed set of Demy's "essential" work, with hours of supplements, essays, and restored image and sound. The films include Lola, Bay of Angels, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Young Girls of Rochefort, Donkey Skin, and Une Chambre en Ville as well as most of Demy's early short films.
Personal life
As a student, Demy did not learn any foreign languages. In the 1960s, with the help of some classes, internships, and spending some time in the United States, he learned English. At the time of the Anouchka project, which took many years to complete, he also learned Russian.[1] In the early 1970s, taking after the example of Michel Legrand, he earned his private pilot's license for passenger planes.[2]
Jacques Demy was bisexual.[3] In 1958, Jacques Demy and Agnès Varda met at a short film festival in Tours. The two married in 1962. They had a son together, Mathieu Demy (born 1972), and Demy also adopted Varda's daughter, Rosalie Varda (born 1958), whom she had with Antoine Bourseiller in a previous relationship.[4] Together, Demy and Varda owned a home in Paris and another property with an old mill on the Noirmoutier Island in Vendée, where the shots of Demy on a beach in Jacquot de Nantes (1991) were taken. The film is a version of Demy's autobiographical notebooks, an account of Demy's childhood and his lifelong love of theatre and cinema. Varda paid homage to her husband in Jacquot de Nantes, Les demoiselles ont eu 25 ans (1993), and L’Univers de Jacques Demy (1995).
Demy died on October 27, 1990, at the age of 59.[5][6] Originally, it was reported that he died of cancer,[7] but in 2008 Varda revealed that Demy died of HIV/AIDS.[8][9][10] He was buried at the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris.[11]
Filmography
Film
| Year | English title | Director | Writer | Original title |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | Lola | Yes | Yes | |
| 1963 | Bay of Angels | Yes | Yes | La Baie des Anges |
| 1964 | The Umbrellas of Cherbourg | Yes | Yes | Les Parapluies de Cherbourg |
| 1967 | The Young Girls of Rochefort | Yes | Yes | Les Demoiselles de Rochefort |
| 1969 | Model Shop | Yes | Yes | |
| 1970 | Donkey Skin | Yes | Yes | Peau d'Âne |
| 1972 | The Pied Piper | Yes | Yes | |
| 1973 | A Slightly Pregnant Man | Yes | Yes | L'événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la lune |
| 1979 | Lady Oscar | Yes | Yes | |
| 1982 | A Room in Town | Yes | Yes | Une chambre en ville |
| 1985 | Parking | Yes | Yes | |
| 1988 | The Turntable | Yes | Yes | La table tournante |
| 1988 | Three Seats for the 26th | Yes | Yes | Trois places pour le 26 |
Short films
| Year | English title | Director | Writer | Original title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1951 | Dead Horizons | Yes | Yes | Les horizons morts | |
| 1956 | The clog maker of the Loire Valley | Yes | Yes | Le sabotier du Val de Loire | Documentary short |
| 1957 | The Beautiful Indifferent | Yes | No | Le bel indifférent | |
| 1958 | Grévin Museum | Yes | No | Musée Grévin | |
| 1959 | Mother and Child | Yes | No | La mère et l'enfant | |
| 1959 | Ars | Yes | Yes | Ars | Documentary short |
| 1962 | Lust | Yes | Yes | La luxure | An episode in The Seven Deadly Sins |
Television
| Year | English title | Director | Writer | Original title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | Break of Day | Yes | Yes | La Naissance du Jour | Part of Le roman du samedi. Television movie. |
Awards and honors
- 1963 : Louis Delluc Prize for Les Parapluies de Cherbourg
- 1964 : Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival for Les Parapluies de Cherbourg
On 5 June 2019, on Demy's 88th birthday, he was honored with a Google Doodle.[12]
Jean Rohmer (1920-2010)
Jean Marie Maurice Schérer or Maurice Henri Joseph Schérer, known as Éric Rohmer (French: [eʁik ʁomɛʁ]; 21 March 1920[a] – 11 January 2010), was a French film director, film critic, journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and teacher. Rohmer was the last of the post-World War II French New Wave directors to become established. He edited the influential film journal Cahiers du cinéma from 1957 to 1963, while most of his colleagues—among them Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut—were making the transition from critics to filmmakers and gaining international attention.
Rohmer gained international acclaim around 1969 when his film My Night at Maud's was nominated at the Academy Awards.[1] He won the San Sebastián International Film Festival with Claire's Knee in 1971 and the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for The Green Ray in 1986. In 2001, Rohmer received the Venice Film Festival's Career Golden Lion. After his death in 2010, his obituary in The Daily Telegraph called him "the most durable filmmaker of the French New Wave", outlasting his peers and "still making movies the public wanted to see" late in his career.[2]
Early life
Rohmer was born Jean-Marie Maurice Schérer (or Maurice Henri Joseph Schérer)[3] in Nancy (also listed as Tulle), Meurthe-et-Moselle department, Lorraine, France, the son of Mathilde (née Bucher) and Lucien Schérer.[4] Rohmer was a Catholic.[2][5] He was secretive about his private life and often gave different dates of birth to reporters.[6] He fashioned his pseudonym from the names of two famous artists: actor and director Erich von Stroheim and writer Sax Rohmer, author of the Fu Manchu series.[7] Rohmer was educated in Paris and received an advanced degree in history, though he seemed equally interested in other subjects, also studying literature, philosophy, and theology.[8]
Career as a journalist
Rohmer first worked as a teacher[9] in Clermont-Ferrand.[8] In the mid-1940s he quit his teaching job and moved to Paris, where he worked as a freelance journalist.[7] In 1946 he published a novel, Elisabeth (AKA Les Vacances) under the pen name Gilbert Cordier.[7][8] While living in Paris, Rohmer first began to attend screenings at Henri Langlois's Cinémathèque Française, where he first met and befriended Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette and other members of the French New Wave. Rohmer had never been very interested in film, preferring literature, but soon became an intense lover of films and about 1949 switched from journalism to film criticism. Rohmer wrote film reviews for such publications as Révue du Cinéma, Arts, Temps Modernes and La Parisienne.[8]
In 1950, he co-founded the film magazine La Gazette du Cinéma with Rivette and Godard, but it was short-lived. In 1951 Rohmer joined the staff of André Bazin's newly founded film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, of which he became the editor in 1956.[9][10] There, Rohmer established himself as a critic with a distinctive voice; fellow Cahiers contributor and French New Wave filmmaker Luc Moullet later remarked that, unlike the more aggressive and personal writings of younger critics like Truffaut and Godard, Rohmer favored a rhetorical style that made extensive use of questions and rarely used the first person singular.[11] Rohmer was known as more politically conservative than most of the Cahiers staff, and his opinions were highly influential on the magazine's direction while he was editor. Rohmer first published articles under his real name but began using "Éric Rohmer" in 1955 so that his family would not find out that he was involved in the film world, as they would have disapproved.[8]
Rohmer's best-known article was "Le Celluloïd et le marbre" ("Celluloid and Marble", 1955), which examines the relationship between film and other arts. In the article, Rohmer writes that in an age of cultural self-consciousness, film is "the last refuge of poetry" and the only contemporary art form from which metaphor can still spring naturally and spontaneously.[8] In 1957, Rohmer and Claude Chabrol wrote Hitchcock (Paris: Éditions Universitaires, 1957), the earliest book-length study of Alfred Hitchcock. It focuses on Hitchcock's Catholic background and has been called "one of the most influential film books since the Second World War, casting new light on a filmmaker hitherto considered a mere entertainer".[2] Hitchcock helped establish the auteur theory as a critical method and contributed to the reevaluation of the American cinema that was central to that method. By 1963, Rohmer was becoming more at odds with some of the more radical left-wing critics at Cahiers du Cinéma. He continued to admire American films while many of the other left-wing critics had rejected them and were championing cinéma vérité and Marxist film criticism. Rohmer resigned that year and was succeeded by Rivette.[8] An anthology of Rohmer's writings on cinema was published in French in 1984 and in English translation in 1989 as The Taste for Beauty.[12]
Film career
1950–1962: Shorts and early film career
In 1950 Rohmer made his first 16mm short film, Journal d'un scélérat. The film starred writer Paul Gégauff and was made with a borrowed camera. By 1951 Rohmer had a bigger budget provided by friends and shot the short film Présentation ou Charlotte et son steak. The 12-minute film was co-written by and starred Jean-Luc Godard.[8] The film was not completed until 1961. In 1952 Rohmer began collaborating with Pierre Guilbaud on a one-hour short feature, Les Petites Filles modèles, but the film was never finished. In 1954 Rohmer made and acted in Bérénice, a 15-minute short based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe. In 1956 Rohmer directed, wrote, edited and starred in La Sonate à Kreutzer, a 50-minute film produced by Godard. In 1958 Rohmer made Véronique et son cancre, a 20-minute short produced by Chabrol.
Chabrol's company AJYM produced Rohmer's feature directorial debut, The Sign of Leo (Le Signe du lion) in 1959. In the film an American composer spends the month of August waiting for his inheritance while all his friends are on vacation and gradually becomes impoverished. It included music by Louis Saguer.[8] The Sign of Leo was later recut and rescored by distributors when Chabrol was forced to sell his production company, and Rohmer disowned the recut version.[13] In 1962 Rohmer and Barbet Schroeder co-founded the production company Les Films du Losange (they were later joined by Pierre Coltrell in the late 1960s).[13] Les Films du Losange produced all of Rohmer's work (except his last three features produced by La Compagnie Eric Rohmer).[14]
1962–1972: Six Moral Tales and television work
Rohmer's career began to gain momentum with his Six Moral Tales (Six contes moraux). Each of the films in the cycle follows the same story, inspired by F. W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927): a man, married or otherwise committed to a woman, is tempted by a second woman but eventually returns to the first.[15]
For Rohmer, these stories' characters "like to bring their motives, the reasons for their actions, into the open, they try to analyze, they are not people who act without thinking about what they are doing. What matters is what they think about their behavior, rather than their behavior itself."[16] The French word "moraliste" does not translate directly to the English "moralist" and has more to do with what someone thinks and feels. Rohmer cited the works of Blaise Pascal, Jean de La Bruyère, François de La Rochefoucauld and Stendhal as inspirations for the series.[17]: 292 He clarified, "a moraliste is someone who is interested in the description of what goes on inside man. He's concerned with states of mind and feelings."[16] Regarding the repetition of a single storyline, he explained that it would allow him to explore six variations of the same theme. Plus, he stated, "I was determined to be inflexible and intractable, because if you persist in an idea it seems to me that in the end you do secure a following."[17]: 295
The first Moral Tale was The Bakery Girl of Monceau (1963). This 26-minute film portrays a young man, a college student, who sees a young woman in the street and spends days obsessively searching for her. He meets a second woman who works in a bakery and begins to flirt with her, but abandons her when he finally finds the first woman. Schroder starred as the young man and Bertrand Tavernier was the narrator.[8] The second Moral Tale was Suzanne's Career (1963). This 60-minute film portrays a young student who is rejected by one woman and begins a romantic relationship with a second. The first and second Moral Tales were never theatrically released and Rohmer was disappointed by their poor technical quality. They were not well known until after the release of the other four.[8]
In 1963 Les Films du Losange produced the New Wave omnibus film Six in Paris, of which Rohmer's short "Place de l'Etoile" was the centerpiece.[17]: 290 After being driven out of his editor position at Cahiers, Rohmer began making short documentaries for French television. Between 1964 and 1966 Rohmer made 14 shorts for television through the Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (ORTF) and Télévision Scolaire.[13] These included episodes of Filmmakers of Our Time on Louis Lumiere and Carl Theodor Dreyer, educational films on Blaise Pascal and Stéphane Mallarmé, and documentaries on the Percival legend, the Industrial Revolution and female students in Paris. Rohmer later said that television taught him how to make "readable images". He later said, "When you show a film on TV, the framing goes to pieces, straight lines are warped...the way people stand and walk and move, the whole physical dimension...all this is lost. Personally I don't feel that TV is an intimate medium."[8] In 1964 Rohmer made the 13-minute short film Nadja à Paris with cinematographer Nestor Almendros.[8]
Rohmer and Schroder then sold the rights of two of their short films to French television in order to raise $60,000 to produce the feature film La Collectionneuse in 1967, the third Moral Tale.[18] The film's budget went only to film stock and renting a house in St. Tropez as a set. Rohmer described it as a film about l'amour par désoeuvrement ("love from idleness"). La Collectionneuse won the Jury Grand Prix at the 17th Berlin International Film Festival and was praised by French film critics, though US film critics called it "boring".[8]
The fourth Moral Tale was My Night at Maud's in 1969. The film was made with funds raised by Truffaut, who liked the script, and was initially intended to be the third Moral Tale. But because the film takes place on Christmas Eve, Rohmer wanted to shoot the film in December. Actor Jean-Louis Trintignant was not available so filming was delayed for a year.[19] The film centers on Pascal's Wager and stars Trintignant, Françoise Fabian, Marie-Christine Barrault and Antoine Vitez. My Night at Maud's was Rohmer's first successful film both commercially and critically. It was screened and highly praised at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival and later won the Prix Max Ophüls. It was released in the US and praised by critics there as well. It eventually received Oscar nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Foreign Film.[7][9][20] James Monaco wrote, "Here, for the first time the focus is clearly set on the ethical and existential question of choice. If it isn't clear within Maud who actually is making the wager and whether or not they win or lose, that only enlarges the idea of le pari ("the bet") into the encompassing metaphor that Rohmer wants for the entire series."[8]
The fifth Moral Tale was Le genou de Claire (Claire's Knee, 1970). It won the Grand Prix at the San Sebastián International Film Festival,[9] the Prix Louis Delluc and the Prix Méliès, and was a huge international success. Vincent Canby called it "something close to a perfect film."[8] It was Rohmer's second film in color. Rohmer said, "the presence of the lake and the mountains is stronger in color than in black and white. It is a film I couldn't imagine in black and white. The color green seems to me essential in that film...This film would have no value to me in black and white."[8]
The sixth and final Moral Tale was 1972's Love in the Afternoon (released as Chloe in the Afternoon in the US). Molly Haskell criticized the film for betraying the rest of the series by making a moral judgment of the main character and approving of his decision in the film.[8]
Overall, Rohmer said he wanted the Six Moral Tales "to portray in film what seemed most alien to the medium, to express feelings buried deep in our consciousness. That's why they have to be narrated in the first person singular...The protagonist discusses himself and judges his actions. I film the process."[8]
1972–1987: Adaptations and Comedies and Proverbs
Following the Moral Tales Rohmer wanted to make a less personal film and adapted a novella by Heinrich von Kleist, La Marquise d'O... in 1976. It was one of Rohmer's most critically acclaimed films, with many critics ranking it with My Night at Maud's and Claire's Knee. Rohmer stated that "It wasn't simply the action I was drawn to, but the text itself. I didn't want to translate it into images, or make a filmed equivalent. I wanted to use the text as if Kleist himself had put it directly on the screen, as if he were making a movie ... Kleist didn't copy me and I didn't copy him, but obviously there was an affinity."[8]
In 1978 Rohmer made the Holy Grail legend film Perceval le Gallois, based on a 12th-century manuscript by Chrétien de Troyes. The film received mostly poor critical reviews. Tom Milne said that the film was "almost universally greeted as a disappointment, at best a whimsical exercise in the faux-naif in its attempt to capture the poetic simplicity of medieval faith, at worse an anticlimatic blunder" and that it was "rather like watching the animation of a medieval manuscript, with the text gravely read aloud while the images — cramped and crowded, coloured with jewelled brilliance, delighting the eye with bizarre perspectives — magnificently play the role traditionally assigned to marginal illuminations."[8] In 1980 Rohmer made a film for television of his stage production of Kleist's play Catherine de Heilbronn, another work with a medieval setting.[21]
Later in 1980 Rohmer embarked on a second series of films: the "Comedies and Proverbs" (Comédies et Proverbes), where each film was based on a proverb. The first "Comedy and proverb" was The Aviator's Wife, which was based on an idea that Rohmer had had since the mid-1940s. This was followed in 1981 with Le Beau Mariage (A Perfect Marriage), the second "Comedy and Proverb". Rohmer stated that "what interests me is to show how someone's imagination works. The fact that obsession can replace reality."[8] In his review of the film, film critic Claude Baignères said that "Eric Rohmer is a virtuoso of the pen sketch...[He had not been] at ease with the paint tubes that Persival required, [but in this film he created] a tiny figurine whose every feature, every curl, every tone is aimed at revealing to us a state of soul and of heart."[8] Raphael Bassan said that "the filmmaker fails to achieve in these dialogues the flexibility, the textual freedom of The Aviator's Wife. A Perfect Marriage is only a variation on the spiritual states of the petty bourgeoise who go on and on forever about the legitimacy of certain institutions or beliefs confronted by problems of the emotions. Quite simply, this is a minor variation on this central Rohmerian theme."[8]
The third "Comedy and proverb" was Pauline at the Beach in 1983. It won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 33rd Berlin International Film Festival. It was based on an idea that Rohmer had in the 1950s, originally intended for Brigitte Bardot. Rohmer often made films that he had been working on for many years and stated "I can't say 'I make one film, then after that film I look for a subject and write on that subject...then I shoot.' Not at all...these are films that are drawn from one evolving mass, films that have been in my head for a long time and that I think about simultaneously."[8]
The fourth "Comedy and Proverb" was Full Moon in Paris in 1984. The film's proverb was invented by Rohmer himself: "The one who has two wives loses his soul, the one who has two houses loses his mind." The film's cinematographer Renato Berta called it "one of the most luxurious films ever made" because of the high amount of preparation put into it. The film began with Rohmer and the actors discussing their roles and reading from the film's scenario while tape recording the rehearsals. Rohmer then re-wrote the script based on these sessions and shot the film on Super 8mm as a dress rehearsal. When the film was finally shot, Rohmer often used between two and three takes for each shot, and sometimes only one take. Alain Bergala and Alain Philippon have stated that "all the art of Eric Rohmer consists of creating on the set a veritable osmosis among himself, the actors and the technicians."[8] Rohmer even encouraged actress Pascale Ogier to design sets for the film since her character is an interior decorator. Ogier later won the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival. Alain Philippon called the film "one of the most accomplished films that Rohmer has given us...and that if the film moves it is because of its own risk-taking."[8]
The fifth "Comedy and Proverb" was The Green Ray in 1986. Rohmer explained that "I was struck by the naturalness of television interviews. You can say that here, nature is perfect. If you look for it, you find it because people forget the cameras."[8] As was becoming his custom in pre-production, Rohmer gathered his cast together to discuss the project and their characters, but then allowed each actor to invent their own dialogue. Rohmer stated that lead actress Marie Rivière "is the one who called the shots, not only by what she said, but by the way she'd speak, the way she'd question people, and also by the questions her character evoked from the others."[8] The film was shot chronologically and in 16mm so as to be "as inconspicuous as possible, to have Delphine blend into the crowd as a way, ultimately, of accentuating her isolation."[8] Rohmer also instructed his cinematographer Sophie Maintigneux to keep technical aspects of the shoot to a minimum so as to not interrupt or distract the actors. The film's only major expense was a trip to the Canary Islands in order to film the green rays there. Rohmer chose to première the film on Canal Plus TV, a pay-TV station that paid $130,000 for the film, which was only one fifth of its budget. Rohmer stated that "Cinema here will survive only because of television. Without such an alliance we won't be able to afford French films."[8] The experiment paid off when the film was a theatrical hit after being released three days after its initial broadcast. It won the Golden Lion and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1986 Venice Film Festival. It was mostly praised by film critics, although Alain Robbe-Grillet wrote an unfavorable review and stated "I didn't like it very much."[8]
The Sixth "Comedy and Proverb" was Boyfriends and Girlfriends (L'Ami de mon amie) in 1987.
1987–2009: Tales of the Four Seasons and later film career
He followed these with a third series in the 1990s: Tales of the Four Seasons (Contes des quatre saisons). Conte d'automne or Autumn Tale was a critically acclaimed release in 1999 when Rohmer was 79.[9] The previous titles of the series were A Tale of Springtime (1990), A Tale of Winter (1992), and A Summer's Tale (1996).
Beginning in the 2000s, Rohmer, in his eighties, returned to period drama with The Lady and the Duke and Triple Agent. The Lady and the Duke caused considerable controversy in France, where its negative portrayal of the French Revolution led some critics to label it monarchist propaganda. Its innovative cinematic style and strong acting performances led it to be well received elsewhere.
In 2001, his life's work was recognised when he received the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.[22][23]
In 2007, Rohmer's final film, The Romance of Astrea and Celadon, was shown during the Venice Film Festival,[22] at which he spoke of retiring.[9][22]
Style
Rohmer's films concentrate on intelligent, articulate protagonists who frequently fail to own up to their desires. The contrast between what they say and what they do fuels much of the drama in his films. Gerard Legrand once said that "he is one of the rare filmmakers who is constantly inviting you to be intelligent, indeed, more intelligent than his (likable) characters."[8] Rohmer considered filmmaking to be "closer to the novel—to a certain classical style of novel which the cinema is now taking over—than the other forms of entertainment, like the theater."[8]
Many of Rohmer's films have a circular structure, with the main part consisting of a digression that will "seem to promise escape from a trap which the protagonist feels closing around him or her, but will come to be seen rather as itself a trap from which the protagonist must escape".[24] This is most easily observable in films such as Pauline at the Beach and A Summer's Tale, which begin with their protagonists arriving and end with their protagonists leaving in the same manner in which they arrived.[25]
Rohmer saw the full-face closeup as a device that does not reflect how we see each other and avoided its use. He avoids extradiegetic music (not coming from onscreen sound sources), seeing it as a violation of the fourth wall. He has on occasion departed from the rule by inserting soundtrack music in places in The Green Ray (1986) (released as Summer in the United States). Rohmer also tends to spend considerable time in his films showing his characters going from place to place, walking, driving, bicycling or commuting on a train, engaging the viewer in the idea that part of the day of each individual involves quotidian travel. This was most evident in Le Beau Mariage (1982), which had the female protagonist constantly traveling, particularly between Paris and Le Mans.
Rohmer typically populates his films with people in their twenties and the settings are often on pleasant beaches and popular resorts, notably in La Collectionneuse (1967), Pauline at the Beach (1983), The Green Ray (1986) and A Summer's Tale (1996). These films are immersed in an environment of bright sunlight, blue skies, green grass, sandy beaches, and clear water. He explained that "people sometimes ask me why most of the main characters in my films are young. I don't feel at ease with older people ... I can't get people older than forty to talk convincingly."[8]
Half a dozen of Rohmer's films are set in the summertime, which he depicts as a time of beauty and leisure but also of "stagnation and aimlessness".[25]: 777 He does this through cinematography and sound design, but primarily through presenting "reflective characters with too much time on their hands and too many thoughts in their heads".[25]: 777 Rohmer said he wanted to look at "thoughts rather than actions", dealing "less with what people do than what is going on in their minds while they are doing it." Given Rohmer's professed interest in the anticipation rather than the climax in his tales, the summertime provides his characters with the time and space to show their self-consciousness and anxiety, rather than the solitude and relaxation they desire.[25]: 778
Rohmer preferred to use non-professional actors in his films. He usually held a large number of rehearsals before shooting and would shoot his films very quickly. He spent little time editing his films. He usually shot his films chronologically, and often shot scenes during the time of day in which they took place. He explained that "my films are based on meteorology. If I didn't call the weather service everyday, I couldn't make my films because they're shot according to the weather outside. My films are slaves to weather."[8]
Similarly, Rohmer's films all have a strong sense of place. Whether shot in Paris, Clermont-Ferrand, or elsewhere, his films clearly show where they are and how the characters are part of that place. Characters travel or walk past signposts or monuments, or converse about these places. The locations in which the characters exist are as important an element in his films as what his characters are saying and doing. For this reason, Rohmer has been called a "poet of place".[26]
The director's characters engage in long conversations—mostly talking about man–woman relationships but also on mundane issues like trying to find a vacation spot. There are also occasional digressions by the characters on literature and philosophy as most of Rohmer's characters are middle class and university educated.
A Summer's Tale (1996) has most of the elements of a typical Rohmer film: no soundtrack music, no close-ups, a seaside resort, long conversations between beautiful young people (who are middle class and educated) and discussions involving the characters' interests from songwriting to ethnology.
Beginning in the late 1970s during the production of Perceval le Gallois Rohmer began to reduce the number of crew members on his films. He first dispensed with the script supervisor, then (controversially) cut out the assistant director, then all other assistants and technical managers until, by the time he shot The Green Ray in 1986, his crew consisted only of a camera operator and a sound engineer. Rohmer stated that "I even wonder if I could work in the usual conditions of filmmaking."[8]
His style was famously criticised by Gene Hackman's character in the 1975 film Night Moves who describes viewing Rohmer's films as "kind of like watching paint dry".[9]
Rohmer was a highly literary man. His films frequently refer to ideas and themes in plays and novels, such as references to Jules Verne (in The Green Ray), William Shakespeare (in A Winter's Tale) and Pascal's wager (in Ma nuit chez Maud).
Personal life and death
Rohmer's brother was the philosopher René Schérer. In 1957, Rohmer married Thérèse Barbet.[2] The couple had two sons.[2] The elder, René Monzat (b. 1958), is an author and investigative journalist at, most recently, Le Monde and Mediapart.[27] His work focuses on the French far-right.[28][29]
Rohmer was a devout Catholic, monarchist,[30] and "ecological zealot".[8] For years he had no telephone and refused to get into cars, which he called "immoral pollutors".[8] For many years he was known to jog two miles to his office every morning. He was well known for his need for personal privacy and sometimes wore disguises, such as a false moustache at the New York premiere of one of his films. Rohmer's mother died without ever knowing that her son was a famous film director.
Rohmer died on the morning of 11 January 2010 at the age of 89[9][22][23] after a series of strokes.[31]: 1345 He had been admitted to hospital the previous week.[20]
The former Culture Minister Jack Lang called Rohmer "one of the masters of French cinema".[22] Director Thierry Fremaux called his work "unique".[22]
Rohmer's grave is in district 13 of Montparnasse Cemetery.
At the 2010 César Awards, actor Fabrice Luchini presented a special tribute to Rohmer:
I'm going to read a remarkable text written by Jacques Fieschi, writer, director, creator of "the cinematographe", challenger of Les cahiers du cinéma, which recently published a special edition on Eric Rohmer. Truffaut once said he was one of the greatest directors of the 20th century, Godard was his brother, Chabrol admired him, Wenders couldn't stop taking photos of him. Rohmer is a tremendous international star. The one and only French director who was in coherence with the money spent on his films and the money that his films made. I remember a phrase by Daniel Toscan Du Plantier the day Les Visiteurs opened, which eventually sold 15 million tickets: "Yes but there is this incredible film called L'arbre, le maire et la médiathèque that sold 100,000 tickets, which may sound ridiculous in comparison, but no, because but it was only playing in one theater for an entire year." A happy time for cinema when this kind of thing could happen. Rohmer. Here is a tribute from Jacques Fieschi: "We are all connected with the cinema, at least for a short time. The cinema has its economical laws, its artistic laws, a craft that once in a while rewards us or forgets us. Éric Rohmer seems to have escaped from this reality by inventing his own laws, his own rules of the game. One could say his own economy of the cinema that served his own purpose, which could skip the others, or to be more accurate that couldn't skip the audience with its originality. He had a very unique point of view on the different levels of language and on desire that is at work in the heart of each and every human being, on youth, on seasons, on literature, of course, and one could say on history. Éric Rohmer, this sensual intellectual, with his silhouette of a teacher and a walker. As an outsider he made luminous and candid films in which he deliberately forgot his perfect knowledge of the cinema in a very direct link with the beauty of the world." The text was by Jacques Fieschi and it was a tribute to Éric Rohmer. Thank you.
On 8 February 2010, the Cinémathèque Française held a special tribute to Rohmer that included a screening of Claire's Knee and a short video tribute to Rohmer by Jean-Luc Godard.[32]
Legacy
Rohmer's depictions of Paris are the subject of Richard Misek's 2013 documentary Rohmer in Paris.[33]
Éric Rohmer: A Biography, by Antoine de Baecque and Noël Herpe, was published in French in 2014 and English translation in 2016.[34]
Marco Grosoli's 2018 book Eric Rohmer's Film Theory (1948–1953) analyzes and reevaluates Rohmer's early writings on cinema.[35]
Awards and nominations
Filmography
Directed features
- The Sign of Leo (1962)
- The Collector (1967)
- My Night at Maud's (1969)
- Claire's Knee (1970)
- Love in the Afternoon (1972)
- The Marquise of O (1976)
- Perceval le Gallois (1978)
- Catherine de Heilbronn (1980, television film)
- The Aviator's Wife (1981)
- A Good Marriage (1982)
- Pauline at the Beach (1983)
- Full Moon in Paris (1984)
- The Green Ray (1986)
- Boyfriends and Girlfriends (1987)
- Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (1987)
- Le trio en mi bémol (1988)
- A Tale of Springtime (1990)
- A Tale of Winter (1992)
- The Tree, the Mayor and the Mediatheque (1993)
- Rendezvous in Paris (1995)
- A Summer's Tale (1996)
- Autumn Tale (1998)
- The Lady and the Duke (2001)
- Triple Agent (2004)
- The Romance of Astrea and Celadon (2007)
Bibliography
- Élisabeth (1947; published in English in 2026)
- Hitchcock (1957, with Claude Chabrol; published in English as Hitchcock, the First Forty-four Films in 1979)
- Six Contes Moraux (1975; published in English as Six Moral Tales in 1980)
- L' Organisation de l'Espace dans le Faust de Murnau (1977)
- Goût de la beauté (1984; published in English as The Taste of Beauty in 1990)