Béatrice Romand in Éric Rohmer’s Claire's Knee (1970), Love in the Afternoon (1972), Le Beau Mariage (1982), The Green Ray (1986), and Autumn Tale (1998)
Aurora Cornu and Jean-Claude Brialy in Claire's Knee (Éric Rohmer, 1970)
Cast: Jean-Claude Brialy, Aurora Cornu, Béatrice Romand, Laurence de Monaghan, Michèle Montel, Gérard Falconetti, Fabrice Luchini. Screenplay: Éric Rohmer. Cinematography: Néstor Almendros. Film editing: Cécile Decugis.
Call me naïve, but I never realized before how much Claire's Knee is a kinder, gentler version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Éric Rohmer's characters exist to talk, not to act, so that physical seduction is replaced by verbal dalliance. The novelist Aurora (Aurora Cornu) in Claire's Knee is not, like the Marquise de Merteuil of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos's novel and its many adaptations, out to deflower the innocent, using Jerome (Jean-Claude Brialy), her equivalent of Valmont, as her instrument. For her, the dalliance of older man and teenager is an intellectual exercise, one that might result in a novel for her and only incidentally in pleasure for him. So it's also of importance that of the two jeunes filles en fleurs of the film, it's the more intellectual Laura (Béatrice Romand) who truly attracts Jerome, while the strikingly pretty but vapid Claire (Laurence de Monaghan) may be dismissed along with the brief erotic thrill he gets from caressing her titular joint. But has a film ever been sexier without actual nudity and copulation? Add to that the taboos about underage sex, and we get a film taut with suspense yet essentially light-hearted and full of wisdom about the complexities of love.
the perfect job for every supernatural character in fanfiction is in fact park ranger. dean should be a park ranger. cas should be a park ranger. sam should be a park ranger. jody, claire, kevin, charlie, bobby, gabriel, eileen, mick davies and rowena should be park rangers. jack should be a park ranger in training. stop making them cops in fanfiction. dean hates cops. fuck cops.