CLAIRE'S KNEE

France, 1970, 105 minutes, Colour.
Jean- Claude Brialy, Aurora Cornu, Beatrice Romand, Laurence de Monahan, Fabrice Luchini.
Directed by Eric Rohmer.

Claire’s Knee is one of Eric Rohmer’s moral fables from the 1960s and 1970s, a series initiated with My Night at Maude’s. Rohmer was to go on making a variety of moral fables including a series of tales from the various seasons. He was making films from the 1960s till the beginning of the 21st century, always a restrained and elegant writer and director, always probing, in very French style, moral issues, especially those beneath the surface.

The simple plot here concerns a thirty-five-year-old diplomat (Brialy) who is on holidays in Switzerland, with his writer friend, Aurora. She is getting him interested in two young girls – but he is more interested in the quiet Claire, someone who reveals his inner self – and, in a gentle fetish, he feels a compulsion to touch her knee. Rohmer takes the opportunity, without sensation, to consider desire and its effect on the male psyche.

The film won a number of awards, especially a Golden Globe for best foreign film and the best film from the National Board of Review.

1. This film was a moral fable. How valid as a moral fable? Is the cinema a good way to teach moral lessons? Was this film too static in imparting its moral message? Or was it successful? How?

2. Comment on the beautiful photography of the film. How important were the settings and the holiday atmosphere? How important was the diary technique, ensuring the development of time?

3. How much were we meant to identify with the hero and his explorations of feeling and love? Did we get enough explanation of his background? His relationship with Lucinda? His philosophy of marriage? his' philosophy of love and fidelity? His belief in fidelity and against infidelity? What attitude did he have towards women and towards love? Why was he going to marry Lucinda? Were his motivations sound and his outlook valid? How strong was his will in regard to his loving her? Is Love a matter of willed controlled?

4. Aurora: what was her function in the film? As a questioner? As a challenger to the hero’s values? Was she an important character in herself? Did he love her at all? Why did he feel at home with her and respond to her challenges? How did she make him realism his love for Lucinda? Was he interested in her? Why was he surprised when she became engaged?

5. What was the function of Laura in the film? the possibility of young love? A seduction from fidelity? Flirtation? How attractive a girt was she? Was her background and her outlook filled in adequately? Why did she respond to the hero? Why did he respond to her - was it love? or was it friendly and fatherly concern? What did he learn about himself in relation ship to Laura?

6. How attractive a character was Claire? How enigmatic was she? What fascination did she have for the hero? As compared with Laura? As compared with Aurora? compared with her mother? Claire as an ordinary young girl? on holidays, with her sister, with her mother, with her boyfriend? How attached was she to her boyfriend? What was the meaning of the hero’s obsession with her knee? What did this symbolise? In terms of love and fidelity in terms of a goal and respect? The importance of the encounters between the hero and Claire? What was happening to him? Why did he confide in Aurora? Was her advice good? The importance of the rowing on the lake, the sheltering in the house? Why did he humiliate Claire? What was her reaction? Why was he able to touch her knee? What did this meen to him? how did he analyse it with Aurora afterwards? On the realistic level this seems trivial. How did it reveal the nature and quality of his love?

7. What function did the younger men play in the film? As contrasts with the hero? As suitors to Laura and Claire?

8. How well did the film use ordinary holiday situations to make its point? The use of the houses, the lake, the weather, the sunshine?

9. What had the hero leant by the end of the film? Had the audience learnt it to? What values did the film emphasise? How valuable is a moral fable like this?