My Night at Maud's

Eric Rohmer's third moral tale, My night at Maud's, explores and visualizes the individual desire to practice what one preaches in the face of everyday hardships and relationships. It is a film with little action. It moves in the form of text that is experienced. The film follows the conversational dialogs in three of the four main characters. The interconnectedness of these characters brings together the characters' differing worldviews and the way in which they practice their given philosophies. It revolves around Jean-Louis' moralizing in the face of love and lust, and how these two things birth from rituals and moral perpetuated onto him from his (Catholic) milieu. The other characters, namely Vidal and Maud, challenge his worldview of the milieu with their philosophies, and their own lifestyles and upbringings (especially Maud's). This film humanizes ("practicalizes") the philosophies of these characters. It shows how they live around the ideologies that they advocate. For Jean-Louis this comes in the form of a sort of midlife crisis where he struggles between his beliefs and his desires. He works through the barriers of the milieu, and yet never really goes beyond them. This struggle, which is encompassed in a brief relationship with Maud, starting with his first night with her and then the subsequently short-lived relationship they have thereafter, shows how even his (perhaps) curious (or perhaps fervent) desires cannot vie or challenge his Catholic rhetoric. Because she does not practice, she is not worthy of his love; instead, she is a threat. It is as though he fears that if she tears down one of his moral walls, then she will begin to tear away at the fabric of his moral consciousness (and thus damn him to an afterlife without salvation). This moral threat frightens Jean-Louis to the point that he will not even sleep in bed next to Maud, and later, when he finally does move next to her, he wraps a barrier (a blanket) around himself so as not to be penetrated by her (or her worldview). But is it really about her? Or, is it Jean-Louis' fear of his own weakness, and furthermore his fear of change that has him react in this manner? She does not force herself upon him, in fact, she does her best to show him that he has the power to make the choices that he does. He takes her comforting demeanor for charming lust. Is this idea of seduction not perpetuated by the Catholic rhetoric with which he lives by? His fears are a product of the worldview with which he has been indoctrinated by. And yet, despite his denial of it, he feels as though he is the innocent. This blind-eye pushes him away from her. Instead he is lured in by Francoise. He finds his love at church, in the milieu where he feels most comfortable, because it does not threaten his worldview. But is not the way in which he pursues her rather odd? After he sees her in church he, unbeknownst to her, follows her, and on frequent subsequent occasions he continues to do the same. He is trying to take control of his fate and hers. It is no longer a Pascalian wager with chance. It becomes a game of cat and mouse with Francoise in the crosshairs. This pursuance brings him back to Earth, he is no longer wagering on an invisible infinite potential; nor is he allowing predetermination to take the helm and direct him toward his infatuation. In this sense the film plays on many contradictions between theory and practice. The lust (potentially love, but nonetheless “sinful”) Francoise has for Maud's husband is instantly forgiven because in theory (as a practicing Catholic) she fits Jean-Louis’ ideal. Yet, her seduction is in fact more scornful than that of Maud's honesty and hospitality. This constant back-and-forth of ideal and "real" is precisely the "problem" that Rohmer puts forth all throughout the film. It is this philosophizing that Rohmer encourages in the viewer, not only as we watch the film but even thereafter. He promotes an image that provokes thought, which is why this film (and the set of the five other moral tales for that matter) is so remarkable.