Tova Gannana

A voyage around Eric Rohmer’s A Summer’s Tale (1996): Essay 

Bobby Kennedy wrote in his 1967 book, To Seek a Newer World, “In far too many places-in pleasant suburbs as well as city streets-the home is a place to sleep and eat and watch television; but where it is located is not a community. We live in too many places and so we live nowhere.”

Eric Rohmer was a poet of place. In Pauline At The Beach (1983) summer surfers visit the small town casino and invite newly made acquaintances to supper, to drink wine, sleep over, and make love. In The Adventures Of Mirabelle And Reinette (1987) young women study in Paris, argue with a gallerist and a waiter, engage with beggars, and figure out how to pay rent. The characters are part of the towns and cities in Rohmer’s films. They know about the places where they live. In Claire’s Knee (1970), Claire’s mother remarks that her family has been coming to Lake Anancy since 1945. The vineyards which have become tennis courts once belonged to Jérôme’s grandfather. Rohmer picks up more than just who he has in focus. His view is not microscopic; it is sweeping and encompassing. In Boyfriends and Girlfriends (1987) a man coming home on an evening train stares openly at an actress unaware he himself is caught on screen. Rohmer’s films are in his voice the way Glenn Gould can be heard on record humming as he plays Mozart Piano Sonatas Vol.4. Rohmer’s characters speak with thought and intention. They want to listen to one another even as they miscommunicate. They try to follow social rules and local culture. They more or less date one person at a time. They pine for who they cannot have. They aspire to be better connected to themselves and to each other. With Rohmer it is conversation not dialogue, human beings not robots, human vision not corporations. Rohmer is a filmmaker who could have been a painter. His films today play in museums. To watch his films is to see a world that has passed. Kennedy wrote, “Long ago De Toqueville foresaw the fate of people without community: ‘Each of them living apart is a stranger to the fate of all the rest-his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind; as for the rest of his fellow citizens, he is close to them but he seeks them not; he touches them but he feels them not...he may be said at any rate to have lost his country.’” Kennedy was killed at 39. Rohmer lived to be an old man. Both men thought, worked and wrote for the ages not just the times.

Rohmer’s films are about human touch and the imprint we leave on one another. His characters are inviting and innocent. They get hurt. They have faults. They cheat. They judge. They sometimes lie. They turn themselves around to make good. Rohmer’s films are about consent. His characters ask to be loved. They say to one another, yes and no. In My Night At Maud’s (1969) Jean-Louis and Maud converse until they are too tired to talk and fall asleep side by side. Maud’s bed is in her living room as though her apartment is for the public; she speaks for all to hear. Rohmer’s characters have no distractions. They listen for what the other has to say. They look one another in the eye.

A Summer’s Tale (1996) begins with a young man, Gaspard (Melvil Poupaud) on vacation in Brittany. He is alone and silent, surrounded by the sounds of everyone else on vacation. He strums a guitar in his room, walks the beach in early morning, and eats at a cafe in late afternoon. He is noticed by Margot (Amanda Langlet) the waitress at Creperie Claire De Lune. He turns his head away as she greets him. He has chosen solitude. The next day at the beach Margot stops Gaspard before he goes into the water, “Don’t you recognize me?” He doesn’t, “The waitress? I didn’t recognize you with wet hair.” She goes to sunbathe. He goes into the sea. Margot spots Gaspard as he stalks the beach. She invites him to share her towel. He accepts. “Is it your first time here?” she asks. “In Dinard yes, but I’m from Rennes,” he replies.

Gaspard has come to the seaside to wait for his girlfriend Lena (Aurelia Nolin) who Gaspard describes as beautiful and indifferent. He is unsure if he loves her or if she loves him. He is a songwriter with a math degree. Margot has a PhD in Ethnology, “I realised I had much more to learn about Brittany than Indonesia. So I did my thesis on the people from around here. Mainly the descendants of the old Newfoundlanders.” 

Gaspard tells her he will teach math so he has time to write music, “Maybe I don’t want to plan my life around money.” Margot agrees, “If I did, then I’d be on the wrong track.” Saying this connects them to the seaside economy of Brittany. Gaspard is waiting for Lena to arrive. Margot is waiting for Gaspard to return her love. What happens is small and outwardly not much. Margot and Gaspard walk every day in nature. They go dancing. Gaspard meets Solene (Gwenaëlle Simon) another resident of Dinard, who Margot calls “vulgar.” Margot is right because it is Margot who is right for Gaspard. On more than one hike Gaspard reaches for Margot and kisses her. She pushes him away knowing he doesn’t yet love her enough. Margot wants to be the one for whom Gaspard writes his sailor song.

Margot invites Gaspard to join her on a day trip,“Tomorrow I’m off to see an old sailor who was in Newfoundland. Now he lives by the river Rance. Want to come?” In Margot’s van they sing a popular Breton song known as a shanty, their voices better than anything on the radio.

Soon we’ll be in Valparaiso

Haul Away Hey! Hurrah, hurray!

Where others will leave their bones behind,

Ahoy, shipmates,

Away we’ll sail, our fates to find.

They sit with the Newfoundlander at his table. With Gaspard beside her, Margot takes notes. The old man tells them, “We sang on board but it was more for fun.” Margot asks him to sing a shanty for them. We are also listening to him sing. In this way we too are ethnographers learning about the world. Gaspard leaves Dinard by ferry at the end of the film. Margot stays. Their last kiss is full of longing and what if. She waves to him as his boat sets sail.

Rohmer’s characters are philosophers because Rohmer was a philosopher. To watch a Rohmer film is to meet Rohmer himself. He was a Catholic who must have believed in man’s free will, in a God who acknowledges all. The music in Rohmer’s films is not extraneous. It comes from the natural world and the noises humans make. His films are not tales of how we save ourselves, but how through our connection with others we can together be saved.