Matthew Schmitz has a remembrance of French New Wave director Eric Rohmer :
Among the best known of Rohmer’s films are his Six Moral Tales, movies imbued with delicate longing and keen moral awareness in which characters struggle to come to terms with their duties and desires. It’s easy to see, in these films, why some have suggested that the central principle of Rohmer’s personal life was fidelity, a quality exhibited as much in his unfailing punctuality as his deep Catholic faith.
It’s natural that Rohmer’s faith shaped his films; the movies played a large part in leading him to belief. Rohmer experienced a “road to Damascus” moment while watching Stromboli, a film by Italian director Roberto Rossellini. Rohmer was so inspired by Rossellini’s Catholic vision that he turned away from the influence of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism and adopted an outlook grounded in the Catholic faith and animated by the reality of incarnation and being.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
