Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons Is the Pick of the Week

To be honest with you, I have never seen a film by highly influential filmmaker Eric Rohmer (1920-2010), nor have I dabbled into my Blu-ray copy of his Six Moral Tales set, but I have always wanted to. From many other filmmakers and fellow film enthusiasts, he is renowned to be a thoughtful, keen observer of romantic and complicated relationships among Parisians and seemed to be realistically aware of what makes them as complex and human as they are. He also stayed more grounded than his more flamboyant, fellow French New Wave cinematic artists (including Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, and Chabrol).

Reading the plots of all four films in Criterion’s new Tales of the Four Seasons set: A Tale of Springtime, A Tale of Winter, A Tale of Summer, and A Tale of Autumn, I am even more convinced that I really need to immerse myself in the world of Rohmer and his tales of love (whether psychological or philosophical).

The supplements sound nice too. They include new interviews recorded at Rohmer’s house in Tulle, France, featuring Baratier, producer Françoise Etchegaray, sound engineer Pascal Ribier, and editor Mary Stephen; excerpts of radio interviews with Rohmer conducted by film critics Michel Ciment and Serge Daney; documentary from 2005 on the making of A Tale of Summer, by Etchegaray and Jean-André Fieschi; two short films directed by Rohmer: A Farmer in Montfaucon (1968) and The Kreutzer Sonata (1956), and trailer. There is also a new essay by film critic Imogen Sara Smith.

If you want to be introduced to the Rohmer language of love, then this box set is definitely for you.

Other releases:

Universal Classic Monsters: Limited Edition 4K UHD Collection: A brand new eight-disc coffee table book featuring some of early Golden Age’s greatest monster films, including Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, and Bride of Frankenstein, and more.

Twilight (Arbelos): A long unseen masterwork of Hungarian cinema centering on the pursuit of a brutal serial killer of young girls by a retiring policeman obsessed with solving the case.

Godard Cinema (Kino Lorber): A documentary exploring the career, obsessions, and legacy of the late, great Jean-Luc Godard, arguably the most revered filmmaker of all-time.