As a repeatedly self-confessed french cinema enthusiast it embarrasses me to admit this but I'm relatively unfamiliar with Eric Rohmer's filmography. I wanted to note his passing here anyway because he's such an icon of the French New Wave. Rohmer was just a few months shy of his 90th birthday when he died earlier today in Paris.Though I couldn't quite get in synch with Rohmer's recent work (The Lady and the Duke and his last feature Les Amours d'Astrée et de Céladon were the most recent I had seen and both escaped me ...though I adored the finale of the latter), I was quite fond of Pauline à la Plage (Pauline at the Beach) back in the day. It was one of the first handful of French films I sought on on VHS in the late 80s when I decided that French cinema was for me. Merci.
Rohmer's most famous movie is arguably Ma Nuit Chez Maud (My Night With Maud). It was nominated not just once for an Oscar, but twice consecutively: Best Foreign Language Film for 1969 (it lost to Algeria's "Z") and Best Original Screenplay for 1970 (Patton took the prize). [note: They've since changed the rules to insure that Best Foreign Film Nominees from one year are ineligible for Oscar consideration in any category the following year should they get theatrical distribution. The most recent famous example of this situation is the Chinese film Hero... which many felt would have received technical Oscar nominations had it not been a Foreign Film nominee the year before it was actually released Stateside.]
If you're more familiar with Rohmer's career than I, pay tribute. What's your favorite from his filmography? I'd also suggest reading The Auteur's Notebook for a lot more on Rohmer and his films.
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