The films of Eric Rohmer, who died on January 11, were not just about the dialogue, as beautiful and precise as it was. They were also about the placement of his actors in relation to each other in the frame, whether in rooms or in natural surroundings. In other words, mise en scene. I've been rewatching the six Comedies and Proverbs he made in the 80s (The Aviator's Wife, Le Beau Mariage, Pauline at the Beach, Full Moon in Paris, My Boyfriend's Girlfriend). The final and best film of the series, and one of Rohmer's two or three greatest, is Le Rayon Vert (The Green Ray, misleadingly distributed in the U.S. as Summer, not to be confused with A Tale of Summer). In all these films Rohmer starts from a fairly simple premise and creates fascinating, contradictory, sometimes borderline crazy or unsympathetic characters and explores their relationships and emotions in depth. There are few cinematic moments more moving to me than the scene at the end of Le Rayon Vert when Marie Riviere, as the confused heroine, finally sees the titular green ray, the last ray of sunlight on a clear night, and cries out in a burst of ecstatic romantic fulfillment, "Oui!"
