The Cinema of Eric Rohmer: Irony, Imagination, and the Social World by Jacob Leigh

I have written elsewhere of Eric Rohmer (http://stkarnick.com/?p=4963), one of the great film-makers. This is the latest book in English on him. It is aimed at the cinephile or Rohmer devotee, not the casual reader, and discusses most all of his films in detail. The author, a lecturer at the University of London, does not have an overarching thesis Rather, after a brief introduction, he discusses each film in detail. His appreciation of the sophistication of Rohmer’s visual sense and techniques is a strong point and perhaps the book’s greatest contribution. I sometimes disagree with Mr. Leigh’s interpretation or evaluation of a film. To take one of each: I do not find the ending of Chloe in the Afternoon to be “cheerless” but rather marriage affirming and hopeful and I do not share his great enthusiasm for Rohmer’s final film “Les Amours d’Astree et Celadon.” Still, this is a book of fruitful close analysis and therefore I learned from it and I am bold to say that most anyone will.