8 Ambiguity Preferable?
It's hard to speak about "My Nigh at Maud's" in words other than those of praise for its filmic qualities... but how's about taking on meaning. Either this film is pretty ambiguous or I'm missing something. Whether one dissects its parts or observes it whole, it remains ambiguous. So, isn't ambiguity a good thing? Yes, if its recognition leads to meaning, action, truths. No, if it is simply escape, fence-sitting, or art-for-art's sake. But is Rohmer's masterpiece as ambiguous as it appears?
My guess is that it's not. Rohmer sets up these distinct dichotomies between religion/piety and atheism/freedom, light and dark, and men and women. He seems somewhat more sympathetic toward the latter, but a proponent of the former. Perhaps he stands with the preacher for whom Christianity is a "way of life," and "an adventure of sanctity." But isn't Rohmer left behind when his priest adds that it "takes madness to become a saint?" I say this because the film's ending casts a firm vote for form over freedom. But his move away from ambiguity in the direction of form--as opposed to freedom, seems to detract from his genuine classic.
For its Rohmer's solipsisms (sex, love, marriage) that present the problem. First, his central character's role is undermined by these. Jean-Louis is initially an absorbing character, a provincial intellectual, with an air of world travel, and independence. There is no dis-juncture between him and the incredibly effective mise en scene. He is as particular a man in a very specific place--as is his friend, Vidal, the suave philosophy professor. They breathe the air of this provincial world--and such a rare treat: intellectuals with holds on themselves occupying film space.
But Jean-Louis's distinction begins to slip early and slides (incidentally, so does Vidal's and for similar reasons) during his night at Maud's. There's something about the way he chases Francoise--it seems too mundane, too breezy and somewhat obtuse--as if he's quickly morphing into the default French male. But he does make comebacks--that is, before setting foot in Maud's apartment. The problem, however, isn't Maud's--his holy water piety or self-righteousness are not at issue--nor is Jean-Louis Trintignant's performance because he fits the original character perfectly. It's the role. He has not only made a generic male but, more specifically, a Rohmer male--one who exists to experience moral tests via a Rohmer type female who is seductive (always leggy) wily, sophisticated at least in the ways of sex/love/men, and above all, tempting.
As unsettling as Maud may be (see below) again it's the role that takes him out of character, not Maud. He loses his reserve, he becomes too confessional, too awkward--physically and emotionally. He adopts various male postures--the sexually experienced, the wit, the daringly direct, the self-satisfied and he cannot navigate Maud's rather obvious set-up. Whatever he seemed to have had initially has gone the way of passivity, uncertainty, self-absorption, and dependency. He appears a suckling lying across Maud's bed, leaning on his elbow, and gaze-talking into her eyes--then mummy wrapped next to her. And he's lost his warmth (the antithesis of Hitchcock's Father Logan in "I Confess") Yet in spite of all this he will, at times, remind of his early identity, and isn't completely overshadowed by Chermont's cityscape.
What about the title character, Maud? She's the dark-eyed, black hair, worldly (the atheist) to Francoise, the blond catholic snow queen. She too is assigned a role, but while Jean-Louis' is irreversible, hers is reversible---because it cannot contain her longings. However, her expansive identity is not a winning one because it is achieved outside Rohmer's closed box of marriage, love, and sex (her uncomfortably warm apartment, within which even the Marxist Vidal succumbs) The price of her emotional range, values, freedom, romantic leanings is depressing solitude and broken marriages. But what she gets for playing the role of game mistress, temptress, and mediator to men's moral quests, is a chance to expose in these men more than they bargain for. They have to deal with her own acute ambivalence about her roles and also with her uncontrolled consciousness--she would never be among the bevy of girls who Gandhi slept with to test his chastity. She's a witness to men's pretenses, "lack of spontaneity," "stiffness," secretiveness, clinical intelligence--and, yes, their so-called moral victories.
In other words, Maud sounds like the point of view character (and this, for me, is the chief reason for the ambiguity I first referred to). But she's not. She is simply being used as a challenging argument against freedom, and as a mediator of male form and morality. She is free at her own peril--and carries the stigma of freedom. Which she continues to bear 5 years later in terms of isolation and disappointment in love. She alone is not privy to the infinite compositional shot of Jean-Louis, his pre-selected bride Francois, and their son embracing the beachscape of salvation, their principles of faith, love, and marriage intact. For Rohmer's lens turns away from those who do not even care to wager on his fabricated, established forms.
It's hard to speak about "My Nigh at Maud's" in words other than those of praise for its filmic qualities... but how's about taking on meaning. Either this film is pretty ambiguous or I'm missing something. Whether one dissects its parts or observes it whole, it remains ambiguous. So, isn't ambiguity a good thing? Yes, if its recognition leads to meaning, action, truths. No, if it is simply escape, fence-sitting, or art-for-art's sake. But is Rohmer's masterpiece as ambiguous as it appears?
My guess is that it's not. Rohmer sets up these distinct dichotomies between religion/piety and atheism/freedom, light and dark, and men and women. He seems somewhat more sympathetic toward the latter, but a proponent of the former. Perhaps he stands with the preacher for whom Christianity is a "way of life," and "an adventure of sanctity." But isn't Rohmer left behind when his priest adds that it "takes madness to become a saint?" I say this because the film's ending casts a firm vote for form over freedom. But his move away from ambiguity in the direction of form--as opposed to freedom, seems to detract from his genuine classic.
For its Rohmer's solipsisms (sex, love, marriage) that present the problem. First, his central character's role is undermined by these. Jean-Louis is initially an absorbing character, a provincial intellectual, with an air of world travel, and independence. There is no dis-juncture between him and the incredibly effective mise en scene. He is as particular a man in a very specific place--as is his friend, Vidal, the suave philosophy professor. They breathe the air of this provincial world--and such a rare treat: intellectuals with holds on themselves occupying film space.
But Jean-Louis's distinction begins to slip early and slides (incidentally, so does Vidal's and for similar reasons) during his night at Maud's. There's something about the way he chases Francoise--it seems too mundane, too breezy and somewhat obtuse--as if he's quickly morphing into the default French male. But he does make comebacks--that is, before setting foot in Maud's apartment. The problem, however, isn't Maud's--his holy water piety or self-righteousness are not at issue--nor is Jean-Louis Trintignant's performance because he fits the original character perfectly. It's the role. He has not only made a generic male but, more specifically, a Rohmer male--one who exists to experience moral tests via a Rohmer type female who is seductive (always leggy) wily, sophisticated at least in the ways of sex/love/men, and above all, tempting.
As unsettling as Maud may be (see below) again it's the role that takes him out of character, not Maud. He loses his reserve, he becomes too confessional, too awkward--physically and emotionally. He adopts various male postures--the sexually experienced, the wit, the daringly direct, the self-satisfied and he cannot navigate Maud's rather obvious set-up. Whatever he seemed to have had initially has gone the way of passivity, uncertainty, self-absorption, and dependency. He appears a suckling lying across Maud's bed, leaning on his elbow, and gaze-talking into her eyes--then mummy wrapped next to her. And he's lost his warmth (the antithesis of Hitchcock's Father Logan in "I Confess") Yet in spite of all this he will, at times, remind of his early identity, and isn't completely overshadowed by Chermont's cityscape.
What about the title character, Maud? She's the dark-eyed, black hair, worldly (the atheist) to Francoise, the blond catholic snow queen. She too is assigned a role, but while Jean-Louis' is irreversible, hers is reversible---because it cannot contain her longings. However, her expansive identity is not a winning one because it is achieved outside Rohmer's closed box of marriage, love, and sex (her uncomfortably warm apartment, within which even the Marxist Vidal succumbs) The price of her emotional range, values, freedom, romantic leanings is depressing solitude and broken marriages. But what she gets for playing the role of game mistress, temptress, and mediator to men's moral quests, is a chance to expose in these men more than they bargain for. They have to deal with her own acute ambivalence about her roles and also with her uncontrolled consciousness--she would never be among the bevy of girls who Gandhi slept with to test his chastity. She's a witness to men's pretenses, "lack of spontaneity," "stiffness," secretiveness, clinical intelligence--and, yes, their so-called moral victories.
In other words, Maud sounds like the point of view character (and this, for me, is the chief reason for the ambiguity I first referred to). But she's not. She is simply being used as a challenging argument against freedom, and as a mediator of male form and morality. She is free at her own peril--and carries the stigma of freedom. Which she continues to bear 5 years later in terms of isolation and disappointment in love. She alone is not privy to the infinite compositional shot of Jean-Louis, his pre-selected bride Francois, and their son embracing the beachscape of salvation, their principles of faith, love, and marriage intact. For Rohmer's lens turns away from those who do not even care to wager on his fabricated, established forms.