World Cinema: Films
My Night at Maud's

Ma nuit chez Maud (1969)
France
FFP / Les Films du Carrosse / Les Films des Deux-Mondes /
Les Films de la Pléiade / Les Productions de la Guéville / Renn / Simar.
B&W, 110 minutes.


In a period when makers of tony romantic comedies were scrambling for credible ways to delay their characters' making love, the austere French writer-director Eric Rohmer, doing what came naturally, hit on religious scruples. His Catholic hero (Jean-Louis Trintignant), steeped in Pascal, bets that holding out for his ideal—blonde, also Catholic—will have a better payoff than dallying with the raven-tressed nonbeliever Maud (Françoise Fabian). The movie's centrepiece and high point is his night at Maud's, a chaste yet ticklish probing of male emotions and convictions. Rohmer and Trintignant create a man who's so fixed on a mental image that he can't appreciate what's in his grasp. While the pale beauty played by Marie-Christine Barrault fits his ideal, it's Maud—initially intriguing, ultimately haunting—who leaves vibrations in her wake, partly because Fabian is so flesh-tingling and sophisticated. Nestor Almendros did the peerless, sensuous black-and-white cinematography.

Michael Sragow

Françoise Fabian and Jean-Louis Trintignant in MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S (JPG, 13 KB)
Françoise Fabian and Jean-Louis Trintignant in My Night at Maud's


French publicity poster for MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S (JPG, 18 KB)
French publicity poster
for My Night at Maud's

credits

Direction: Eric Rohmer.

Screenplay: Eric Rohmer.

Photography: Nestor Almendros.

Editing: Cécile Decugis.

Art Direction: Nicole Rachline.



cast

Jean-Louis Trintignant..............................................Narrator

Françoise Fabian........................................................Maud

Marie-Christine Barrault.........................................Françoise

Antoine Vitez..............................................................Vidal

Françoise Fabian and Jean-Louis Trintignant in MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S (JPG, 10 KB)
Françoise Fabian and Jean-Louis Trintignant in My Night at Maud's


explore
Actors: Jean-Louis Trintignant

links
Internet Movie Database



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