Meine Nacht bei Maud (1969)

Meine Nacht bei Maud: Directed by Éric Rohmer. With Jean-Louis Trintignant, Françoise Fabian, Marie-Christine Barrault, Antoine Vitez. The rigid principles of a devout Catholic man are challenged during a one-night stay with Maud, a divorced woman with an outsize personality.

“Can love be reduced to an intellectual calculation? Can faith? What role do the emotions play into this calculation? Blaise Pascal, a French scientist and philosopher, put down his thoughts regarding the Christian Religion which were published after his death and came to be known as u0026quot;Penseesu0026quot; or u0026quot;thoughtsu0026quot;. Here Pascal puts forth the case for belief: u0026quot;Since the duration of our lives is but a moment and the state of death eternal . . . those who are guided by their own inclinations and pleasures without reflection and concernu0026quot; for the reality of death eternal, are idiots and should be u0026quot;condemnedu0026quot;. He asks, u0026quot;What would you wager? . . . God is, or He is not. Reason can decide nothing.u0026quot; And not to wager is not an option. Pascal reduces belief to a win/loss calculation with the following: u0026quot;If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing.u0026quot; MY NIGHT AT MAUDu0026#39;S is a film devoid of conventional film devices to sway you one way or the other such as music, special effects, close-ups and general sentimentality. This is a film full of dialog and intellectual meanderings, but it is the emotions of the characters, those subtle distortions of the face, and the voice behind the eyes captured by a lingering camera that speak the truth. On the surface, this picture appears one dimensional and the end merely a continuation of the beginning, but under the surface, the characters have been transformed. Oneu0026#39;s actions may be controlled by intellectual pragmatism, but the emotions govern the inner world with a volotility that cannot be controlled. Single minded conformity to a religious proposition may bring security and comfort, but can love be divorced from the emotions? Can emotions be governed by the intellect? As to Pascals Wager, if one clings to this rigid proposition, despite the changing landscape of the emotions, perhaps shunning love itself, can the conclusion that u0026quot;nothing is lostu0026quot; still be held?”