My Night at Mauds

Plot

The Catholic Jean-Louis, (Jean-Louis Trintignant), runs into an old friend, the Marxist Vidal (Antoine Vitez), in Clermont-Ferrand around Christmas. Vidal introduces Jean-Louis to the modestly libertine, recently divorced Maud (Francoise Fabian) and the three engage in conversation on religion, atheism, love, morality and Blaise Pascals life and writings on philosophy, faith and mathematics. Jean-Louis ends up spending a night at Mauds. Jean-Louis Catholic views on marriage, fidelity and obligation make his situation a dilemma, as he has already, at the very beginning of the film, proclaimed his love for a young woman whom, however, he has never yet spoken to.

Cast

Production and Themes

My Night at Mauds was made with funds raised by Francois Truffaut, who liked the script, and was initially intended to be the third "Moral Tale". But because the film takes place on Christmas Eve, Rohmer wanted to shoot the film on and around Christmas Eve. Actor Jean-Louis Trintignant was not available so filming was delayed for an entire year.

One of the main themes concerns Pascals Wager, which Jean-Louis and Maude discuss. The conversations are directly inspired by the 1965 television show The Talk on Pascal, which was made by Rohmer and included a similar debate between Brice Parain and Dominican Father Dominique Dubarle. The themes of chance and Pascal would be examined by Rohmer in his 1992 film A Tale of Winter.

Reception

When it was released in France in 1969 it received mixed reviews. Guy Teisseire of LAurore wrote that "The best compliment we can pay Eric Rohmer is to have done with My Night at Mauds a talking film. I mean the opposite of a talkative film where the text would be used to fill the gaps: that is to say, a work in which eloquent silences are felt as lack of understanding about both is constant." Claude Garson of LAurore said that "We do not underestimate the ambition of such a work, but we say right away that film, with its own laws, does not lend itself to such a subject. The theater, the conference would have better served the purpose of the authors, because such controversies have nothing photogenic, if not the presence of the beautiful Francoise Fabian and that is very good actor Jean-Louis Trintignant." Henry Chapier of Combat called it "a bit stiff and intellectual." Jean Rochereau of La Croixcalled it "A masterpiece (too bad, I dare say) whose superb insolence toward everyone excites me and fills me." Jean de Baroncelli of Le Monde wrote that "It is a work that demands the viewer a minimum of attention and complicity. We may also blame to be located on the fringes of worries and obsessions of the time: its commitment beyond the everyday. Yet this is, in our view, making its price. Under the pretext of being present, both films are prostitutes nowadays we grateful to Eric Rohmer his haughty austerity and a little outdated. The interpretation is brilliant." Penelope Houston wrote that "this is a calm, gravely ironic, finely balanced film, an exceptionally graceful bit of screen architecture whose elegant proportioning is the more alluring because its symmetry doesn’t instantly hit the eye."

It was Rohmers first successful film both commercially and critically. It was screened and highly praised at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival and later won the Prix Max Ophuls in France. It was released in the US and praised by critics there as well. James Monaco said that "Here, for the first time the focus is clearly set on the ethical and existential question of choice. If it isnt clear within Maud who actually is making the wager and whether or not they win or lose, that only enlarges the idea of "le pari" ("the bet") into the encompassing metaphor that Rohmer wants for the entire series." Its art house theater release in the US was so successful that it got a wider release in regular theaters.

Awards

The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay and was nominated for the Palme dOr at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival. It won the 1969 Prix Melies.