Perception and Suppression in Claire’s Knee

The first major film work of French New Wave director and Cahiers du Cinema editor-in-chief Eric Rohmer was his ‘Six Moral Tales’, a sextet of films (five features and one short) that explore the persona’s and egos of the men that inhabit the picture and the women who so often tempt them. These six films established many of the traits that would mark the rest of Rohmer’s cinematic career. Rohmer’s cinema is defined by recurring aesthetic, thematic, and structural motifs that create simmering and often repressed sensual and intellectual tension that is often highly reminiscent of literary techniques (with many of his films based on his own writings) and philosophical quarries presented due to this slight existentialism (often in stark juxtaposition to the idyllic surroundings).

One of the most intriguing and complex of these ‘Six Moral Tales’ is Claire’s Knee, the fifth in the series and released in 1970. The film follows Jerome (Jean-Claude Brialy), an established French diplomat, as he is vacationing in the Swiss mountain region of Lake Annecy. Engaged to be married back home in Paris, he runs into an old friend Aurora (Aurora Cornu) while in the countryside and eventually meets the daughter of Aurora’s landlady, Laura. The initial source of infatuation, Laura “falls in love” with Jerome but is soon trounced by her older half-sister Claire. After Claire’s arrival, Jerome notices her exposed knee gleaming in the sunlight one picturesque afternoon and immediately becomes infatuated with her. This seemingly simple story is expounded upon through Rohmer’s examination of the philosophical repression Jerome is experiencing coupled with the aesthetic hallmarks of Rohmer’s filmmaking: splendid weather, gorgeous rural French setting, and an unmistakable sense of leisure that allows for the wordy philosophical conundrums to be expressed in eloquent terms by the films subjects.

In order to fully examine Claire’s Knee (or any of the other ‘Six Moral Tales’ for that matter) the examination of what Rohmer means by ‘Moral’ must be made. The films all follow one male’s conundrum by aesthetic means we have already established but the ‘moral’ decision varies in each film. In the case of Claire’s Knee this obstacle is the most complex of all the Moral Tales as well as its presentation within the structure of the narrative. As Fiona Handyside states in her examination of Claire’s Knee,

Two Parts of the triangle are doubled. The role of the narrator is split between the man and his friend, Aurora. Each of them has already made a decision to marry and live a normal life before the film begins. Her vicarious enjoyment of Jerome’s crisis implies that she has already passed a similar temptation. … The “temptress” or “liberated woman” side of the triangle is likewise shared by the two young girls. Claire is similar to the wife in Maud and therefore an inadvertent “temptress.” We know she’ll settle down one of these days and become a good wife. Laura, the more unconventional of the two, is rejected by Jerome.[1]

One of the key parts to analyzing Rohmer’s philosophical implications within the film is the final realization that Fiona makes; that the young girl who made her feelings known to Jerome ultimately got rejected while the one established as a source of infatuation but not overtly interested in Jerome becomes the base of the moral tale within the film. By establishing this sort of doubled structure to the archetypal love triangle of the moral tales, the perceptions and actions of not only the narrator but of Rohmer’s story itself inadvertently effected those not directly involved, i.e. Laura after Jerome’s gaze had switched over to Claire.

The presentation of Jerome’s existential situation and philosophical conundrum is expounded upon by the ever-present countryside setting of Annecy and Nestor Almendros’s serene cinematography that ultimately juxtapose the internal struggle with an alternate aesthetic representation that forces the viewer to take on multiple perspectives of a single event. This technique is utilized in very different fashion by numerous other New Wave directors, most notably Jean-Luc Godard who would take this approach in a far more reflexive and experimental way as he moved into the 1970’s and video technology. Martin Walsh examines this relationship between the text and image and how it establishes a level of uncertainty that ultimately alters the viewers perception of the film itself within the confines of cinema,

Uncertainty is built into the narrative, we might say: the world resists human structures, fictions – it won’t conform to the tidy patterns we try to impose upon it, and Rohmer expands upon this idea in a number of ways. Its most obvious elaboration rests in the tension Rohmer invests in the relationship between word and image. What is said is consistently belied by what is done.[2]

For example, when Jerome tells Claire that he saw her current boyfriend Gilles with another woman he truly believes he has done a good deed not only for himself, but for her. This perception turns out to be an illusion as in the end they are still together and happy. This establishes how the perception of the narrator, one that the viewer automatically perceives not only as empirical but also as right is only an approximation of the actual truth, a one-sided expose that is natural to the human condition but often not differentiated within the cinema.

This complex structure and perceptive shift that ultimately creates a reflexive experience for the viewer to question their own ‘morals’ and sense of cinema stands alone in its execution within the French New-Wave although the ideas behind it are a common practice with the movements other filmmakers. This intensely philosophical and dense approach allows the viewer to examine not only themselves but Rohmer’s musings on relationships and the role of thought in modern European society, a technique uniquely in tune with those of his contemporaries such as Agnes Varda and Francois Truffaut although each did so within starkly different modes. As Barry Grant states,

All the foregoing Rohmer precisely avoids by his philosophic ambivalence towards the erotic which is delicately poised, and now, after centuries of European refinement, serves more as a restraint than a release. Rohmer’s passionate attention is directed at the sensuous ambience of Lake Annecy and the French Alps, testifying to the appreciation of being in and of the world, but his approach to action resides more in what the characters are and what they say than in what they do. … Rohmer’s Claire’s Knee is a loving film, unsullied by the sentimentality as a result of its European astringency of language, wit and structure.[3]

This inherently European and specifically French idealism offers a singular approach to the exploration of these moral conundrums in a way that is ultimately ambiguous in questioning both the filmmaker and viewer.

The films refined aesthetic and visual choices juxtapose while reinforcing the structural and thematic musings of Rohmer’s story. As mentioned earlier, Nestor Almendros’s sensuous color cinematography accentuates visual queues specifically for Jerome’s philosophical discourse as well as highlight the films lush rural setting. The films opening shot is of Jerome in a boat as he rows directly towards Aurora and the camera, so by extension directly towards the audience. This pronounces the arrival of his perception in which the audience is going to view the majority of the film. Almendros utilizes the pleasing color palate and vast landscapes of Annecy to create juxtaposition to Jerome’s internal struggle by directly placing him within the environment that highlights the privileged idyllist that has afforded him the time and means to be able to expound upon his own admittedly minor problem. Therefore the setting and frame establish the first sense the viewer has of this reflexive system within Rohmer’s film and allow a visual allegory to the perception but not to the content specifically.

As well, Almendros’s positioning of subjects within the frame is exponentially important to the emphasis not only of Jerome’s point of view but the examination of the intended altering of perception and expectations on screen. As Daniel Hayes says about the films cinematography,

Almendros recalls that ‘Rohmer resisted the temptation of let too many pretty panoramas turn the film into a collection of picture postcards’. This is also referenced or reinforced by Aurora’s line, ‘It’s too beautiful for me to work well’. Instead of letting the scenery dominate the characters, Almendros slightly overexposes the background to retain the beautiful colours but in a more subordinate way.[4]

In particular, one specific shot stands out as the major moment of change within the film, a technique in direct opposition to the films overarching approach to the problem through overly eloquent musings by its main characters and their dialogue with one another. The scene in question is the moment in which Jerome’s infatuation with Claire is not only realized but wholly manifested. One morning as she climbs a latter, Jerome realizes her bare knee glistening in the sun, a moment emphasized by a close-up shot of her knee that is ultimately supposed to be from the perception of Jerome’s point of view. This specifically visual moment completely alters Jerome’s inhibitions and by extension the story itself. By allowing the viewer to sink into Jerome’s perception of this event we ultimately complicit in the shift from Laura to Claire and the desire expressed aesthetically as an extension of Jerome’s thoughts. This is one of the greatest realizations of Rohmer’s cinema, when the moral and physical (by means of visual representation) intersect and bring to the surface both the individual and the landscape that define the picture.

It is equally important to examine the context of Rohmer’s career within the French New-Wave and his influences in order to fully understand the complex nature of Claire’s Knee. Like many of his peers from Cahiers du Cinema, Rohmer started out as a critic and championed certain filmmakers and critical ideologies that transferred over to his filmmaking in a big way. While Rohmer continually championed filmmakers such as Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock, the two largest influences on his filmmaking sensibilities were those of Jean Renoir and F.W. Murnau, along with the writings of Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal. The theological implications of Jansenism (a sect of Catholicism) that Pascal focused on including original sin and depravity became underlying themes for most of Rohmer’s work (the themes of Jansenism have notably been explored by Rohmer’s contemporary in France, Robert Bresson). The humanist means by which he explored these themes stemmed from the influence of Jean Renoir’s examination of characters as various extensions of society and specifically F.W. Murnau’s 1927 silent film Sunrise and the use of the love triangle coupled with the Good Girl-Bad Girl story technique. These themes and influences established a highly intellectual style of filmmaking that comes off as less directly referential (cinematically at least) than his peers at Cahiers du Cinema but no less steeped in artistic influence and integrity. Rohmer helped to establish the use of various artistic and thematic influences to create a base for new examination as a key motif of the French New-Wave.

WORKS CITED

Crisp, C. G. Eric Rohmer, Realist and Moralist. n.p.: Bloomington: Indiana University     Press, 1988. Print.

Grant, Barry K. :Desire Under the Helms of Rohmer and Bunnuel: Claire’s Knee and             That Obscure Object of Desire.” Literature Film Quarterly 9.1 (1981): 3.       Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 7 May 2015.

Hayes, Daniel. “Claire’s Knee.” Cinematheque Annotations on Film. Senses of Cinema Mag., April 2005, no. 35. Web. 2 May 2015.

Rohmer, Eric, and Fiona Handyside. Eric Rohmer.: Interviews. n.p.: Jackson:      University Press of Mississippi, 2013. USMAI Catalog. Web. 7 May 2015.

Walsh, Martin. “Structured Ambiguity In the Films of Eric Rohmer.” Film Criticism     1.2 (1976): 30-36. Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text. Web. 5   May 2015.

[1] Eric Rohmer Interviews by Fiona Handyside p. 31

[2] “Structured Ambiguity in the Films of Eric Rohmer” by Martin Walsh, p. 32

[3] “Desire Under the Helms of Rohmer and Bunuel” by Barry Grant, p. 5

[4] Claire’s Knee by Daniel Hayes, Senses of Cinema