New Wave Filmmaker Eric Rohmer Dead at 89

Pioneering Frenchman directed 50+ films
By Marie Morris,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 11, 2010 3:29 PM CST
New Wave Filmmaker Eric Rohmer Dead at 89
French film director Eric Rohmer, 81, holds the Golden Lion career achievement award he received during the 58th Venice Film Festival, Sept. 7, 2001.   (AP Photo/Claudio Honorati, Pool-File)

Eric Rohmer, a leading light of the French New Wave and a prolific filmmaker for over 4 decades, died today in Paris. He was 89. Overshadowed early in his career by Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, Rohmer made his mark with his "Six Moral Tales," released from 1963 through 1972. They include My Night at Maud's, for which he received an Oscar nomination, and Claire's Knee.

Born in 1920 somewhere in France, the famously secretive Rohmer worked for the infulential journal Les Cahiers du Cinéma before moving behind the camera. The Venice Film Festival awarded him the Career Golden Lion in 2001. "He proved that you can make great movies with small budgets," said the head of the Cannes Film Festival. "And that's good to keep in mind in the times we live in"
(More film stories.)

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