Directed by Eric Rohmer • 1969 • France
In the brilliantly accomplished centerpiece of Rohmer's Moral Tales series, Jean-Louis Trintignant plays Jean-Louis, one of the great conflicted figures of sixties cinema. A pious Catholic engineer in his early thirties, he lives by a strict moral code in order to rationalize his world, drowning himself in mathematics and the philosophy of Pascal. After spotting the delicate, blonde Françoise at Mass, he vows to make her his wife, although when he unwittingly spends the night at the apartment of the bold, brunette divorcée Maud, his rigid ethical standards are challenged. A breakout hit in the United States, MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S was one of the most influential and talked-about films of the decade.
Up Next in French New Wave
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Claire’s Knee
Directed by Eric Rohmer • 1970 • France
"Why would I tie myself to one woman if I were interested in others?" says Jerôme, even as he plans on marrying a diplomat's daughter by summer's end. Before then, Jerôme spends his July at a lakeside boardinghouse nursing crushes on the sixteen-year-old L...
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Donkey Skin
Directed by Jacques Demy • 1970 • France
Starring Catherine Deneuve, Jean Marais, Delphine SeyrigIn this lovingly crafted, wildly eccentric adaptation of a classic French fairy tale, Jacques Demy casts Catherine Deneuve as a princess who must go into hiding as a scullery maid in order to fend o...
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Murmur of the Heart
Directed by Louis Malle • 1971 • France, Italy, West Germany
Starring Benoît Ferreux, Lea Massari, Daniel GélinLouis Malle’s critically acclaimed MURMUR OF THE HEART gracefully combines elements of comedy, drama, and autobiography in a candid portrait of a precocious adolescent boy’s sexual mat...