glen w. norton - moral perfection in eric rohmer's ma nuit chez maud

7/31/2019 Glen W. Norton - Moral Perfection in Eric Rohmer's Ma Nuit Chez Maud

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Studies in French Cinema Volume 9 Number 1 2009 Intellect Ltd

Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/sfc.9.1.25/1

Moral perfectionism in Eric RohmersMa nuit chez Maud

Glen W. Norton Brock University

AbstractThis essay presents a new reading of Eric Rohmers Ma nuit chez Maud (1969)

which challenges the critical consensus that its depiction of religious faith and

morality is ultimately ironic. The debate revolves around the protagonists reli-

gious epiphany as to whom he is destined to marry. Critical consensus claims

that this epiphany is sustained by lies and deceit, that the protagonists religious

faith is tainted by a self-deluded amour-propre, and that the films happy endingmust therefore be read as ironic. Using Stanley Cavells notion of moral perfec-

tionism as its guide, this essay reveals that Ma nuit chez Maud in fact takes a

paradoxical attitude toward its protagonists epiphany, one which mirrors the

paradoxical nature of religious faith as evidenced in Pascals wager. This argument

is central to the films moral outlook. This paradoxical attitude extends both to

the films temporal depiction of its protagonists epiphany and to the so-called

lies and deceit with which he maintains his faith. Ultimately, this essay argues

that the paradoxical nature ofMa nuit chez Maud allows the viewer to intuit

the protagonists epiphany as a moment lived under the transformative aegis of

divine grace.

Eric Rohmer has a penchant for exploring those vicissitudes of daily life

which ultimately come to shape our moral choices. This is especially true in

the case of his Contes moraux, with each tale using the trope of the married

man who becomes distracted by the other woman to examine themes of

faith and moral conviction in the face of temptation.1 In the third tale of the

series, Ma nuit chez Maud/My Night with Maud (Rohmer, 1969), Rohmers

protagonist, J-L, makes a leap of faith in the face of temptation by remain-

ing faithful to Franoise, a woman he has not yet met, but believes he is

destined to marry.2 By the arrival of the films epilogue, the now-marriedcouple, with their young son in tow, seem perfectly happy. The standard

critical reading of the film, however, asserts that this epilogue is evidence of

the films ironic stance on religious faith. Rohmer is said to disavow his pro-

tagonists faith by depicting instead only his selfish and self-deluded amour-

propre. To prove their claims, these critics contrast J-Ls deceitfulness toward

his new wife with the mutual respect and honesty displayed during his

night with the temptress Maud.3 Rather than falling back upon the claim

that its outlook on faith is ironic, as these critics do, this essay claims Ma

nuit chez Maud in fact works to overcome our scepticism about J-Ls faith by

acknowledging the films intuitive mode of articulation. This intuitive modeis predicated upon the films embodiment of paradox, one which mirrors

1. Rohmers Contesmoraux begin withtwo early short filmsLa Boulangre deMonceau/The BakersGirl of Monceau(1962) and LaCarrire deSuzanne/SuzannesCareer (1963), and

continued with LaCollectionneuse/TheCollector (1967), Manuit chez Maud/MyNight with Maud(1969), Le Genou deClaire/Claires Knee(1970) and LAmourlaprs-midi/Love in thAfternoon (1972).

2. Rohmers protagonisplayed by Jean-LouisTrintignant, is not

given a name, so forboth clarity and

KeywordsEric Rohmer

Ma nuit chez Maud

Stanley Cavell

moral perfectionism

Pascals wager

amour-propre


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the paradoxical nature of religious faith as embraced by Blaise Pascal, espe-

cially in his well-known wager upon the existence of God which frames the

films outlook on morality. The paradoxical nature of the films depiction of

J-Ls epiphany allows us to intuit that his actions are not driven by selfish-

ness at all, but that they are instead indicative of a moment lived under the

transformative aegis of divine grace.

Though it is a moral tale, it must be clarified from the outset that Ma

nuit chez Maud is not meant to be didactic. The films morality, following in

the great French moralist tradition, does not pertain to any absolute sense of

right and wrong, but is instead indicative of its characters self-scrutiny. The

morality ofMa nuit chez Maud therefore hinges upon the motives for J-Ls

inward fidelity to his chosen self in the face of temptation. What Rohmersfilm attempts to communicate is not a cautionary moral about self-deluded

faith, but the anxiety of living moment by moment with ones own chosen

self. For Rohmer, morality is never an ideal, it is an existential crisis.

To explain better this connection between inwardness, morality and

cinema, we begin with an examination of philosopher Stanley Cavells dic-

tum that cinemas true value lies in revealing our wish for selfhood (Cavell

1979: 22). For Cavell, the self is determined in a revelatory and decisive

moment of moral perfectionism. Perfectionism as defined by Cavell is not

confined to a debate between theories, nor is it reducible to a set of condi-

tions for living the good life. Perfectionism is not something to learn asone does a theory or a rationale, but pertains instead to a crucial moment

brevitys sake, from

here on in I will referto him as J-L.

3. Those who areinclined toward thisreading includeCunningham (1986),Ennis (1996), King(2000), Kline (1992)and Mellen (1973).

Figure 1: Marie-Christine Barrault and Jean-Louis Trintignant in Ma nuit chez Maud (Courtesy of

Les Films du Losange).


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in our continual striving toward self-realization and selfhood, a moment

which forces an examination of ones life that calls for a transformation or

reorienting of it (Cavell 2005: 354). This moment of decision and choice,

which comes to everyone in every life, offers a profound insight into lived

temporality. Perfectionism allows us to acknowledge the paradoxical

threshold between the totality of the whole person we are at this moment,

and our intrinsic temporal existence as that self which is always to come.

In the perfectionist moment we somehow grasp that the self is alwaysattained, as well as to be attained (Cavell 1990: 12; Cavells emphasis).

The profundity of the perfectionist moment therefore lies in the realization

that our true choice of self is never singular. Such an epiphanic moment is

not a cleaving point which divides our past self from our future self, but is

instead the realization that this choice must be continually made in the

moment as it is lived, in the now.

Rohmer earns a special place in Cavells pantheon indeed, as one of

the few non-Hollywood film-makers he discusses at length in part due to

his ability to convey continually the depth of the inner now lived by his

protagonists. This is especially evident in Ma nuit chez Maud. In a film whichseems at first to come down on the side of rationality, Rohmer nonetheless

allows for an instinctual one might say faithful grasping of his work,

one crucial in understanding the inward struggle of moral perfectionism: It

would be a possible measure of Rohmers seriousness to suppose that he has

meant his camera to validate, or discover, the fact that instinctive science,

anyway, instinctive philosophy, should be expected to begin in the articula-

tion of an individuals intuition, before or beyond education (Cavell 2004:

427). Ma nuit chez Maud is a profound example of Rohmer allowing the

instinctual to reveal itself as an epiphanic moment grasped, as Cavell puts

it, before or beyond education. Although J-L assimilates his perfectionist

epiphany into his otherwise rational existence, Rohmer allows us to intuit

that something illogical, paradoxical even, is this moments true catalyst.

This intuition, as we shall see, depends on Rohmers particular method of

depicting the temporality of this moment as a continual now.

The notion of moral perfectionism is, as Cavell admits, an outlook or

dimension of thought embodied and developed in a set of texts spanning

the range of western culture (Cavell 1990: 4). We are therefore free to

take up the challenge of perfectionism as it pertains especially to the wager

upon the existence of God in Pascals Penses, the central argument in Ma

nuit chez Maud. Though the characters in the film do present individual

arguments for or against Pascal, Ma nuit chez Maudas a whole does not setout to persuade or dissuade, but only to take Pascal seriously, and in doing

so to use the cinematic medium as a vehicle for thought.

My reading of Pascal is informed for the most part by Lucien

Goldmanns notion that his vision embodies a certain tragic worldview.

Goldmann finds in the Penses a coherent and paradoxical attitude, one

which accepts the rational world yet cannot accept it as the only one

(Goldmann 1976: 50). On one hand, God makes the absurd demand of

faith without compromise, a faith which asks us to abandon worldly

things in favour of the infinite. On the other, He guarantees the eternal,

scientific laws which our reason alone can decipher. Caught between thesetwo infinites, true faith is left with only one choice, that of saying both


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by demanding that others acknowledge ones superiority over them.

During his long conversation with Maud, J-L jokes that he might find a

wife by placing an ad: the woman he marries must be Catholic, blonde,

etc. He declares that, if only due to his sense of amour-propre, he would

remain eternally faithful to her. This declaration can certainly be used as

proof of the films irony. In this reading, J-L finds in Franoise someone

corresponding to his ethical worldview on love and marriage, someone he

can use to maintain his own image as a faithful Catholic. In this reading,his sudden revelation that she is the one is nothing more than a self-

fulfilling prophesy. Yet, as he chats with Maud, we know J-L has already

had his epiphany. J-Ls sense ofamour-propre is therefore not so clear: did

his ideals exist before Franoise appeared to him, or does he declare them

precisely because the one destined for him already fits them? In other

words, is he describing an a priori ideal or simply listing what he intuits about

Franoise? This ambiguity begets a series of paradoxes, the result of which

gives us the sense, by the end of the film, that a real conversion has taken

place within J-L, one which corresponds to Pascals notion of divine grace.

Thomas Merton, one of the most prolific and profound Catholic writers ofthe twentieth century, notes that Pascals understanding of grace allows for

authentic personal freedom in a present which is not predestined. This exis-

tentialist interpretation runs contrary to the orthodox Augustinian-Thomist

notion that only those who are predestined for salvation receive grace

(Merton 1967: 278). Michael Moriarty concurs, pointing out that Pascals

notion of grace is simultaneous with the action it prompts (Moriarty 2003:

152). Thus Pascals grace is an event, a continual now which must again

and again be chosen as such. The affinity with Cavells perfectionist moment

is clear. Pascals grace is a paradoxical state lived simultaneously as actuality

and possibility, always attained, yet always remaining to be attained, always

chosen, yet always remaining to be chosen.

Since the acceptance of grace implies this deeper awareness of lived

temporality, we must carefully scrutinize how J-Ls revelation is depicted

temporally. J-L is a practising Catholic and attends mass regularly, as he

does on the day the film opens. This day, however, his attention is captured

by Franoise, a young woman in the congregation. They exchange fleeting

glances, and after mass he tries unsuccessfully to follow her in his car as

she mopeds through the narrow, winding streets of Clermont-Ferrand.

The next night, J-L is once again driving through streets jammed with

cars. In voice-over he announces: That day, Monday the 21 st of December,

the idea came to me, sudden, precise, definitive, that Franoise would bemy wife.4 The suddenness of his revelation is matched cinematically with

the abrupt appearance of Franoises moped alongside his car. Though he

is again blocked by traffic and cannot follow her, J-L does honk his horn,

causing Franoise to turn and smile. His epiphany has been cinematically

acknowledged. As Tom Ennis points out:

the scene during mass leads us to an awareness that twenty-four hours have

passed between idea and decision [yet] what is evident in [J-Ls] version of

events is the almost total exclusion of an intellectual process leading to a

choice: the decision is instantaneous and there is no going back on it.(Ennis 1996: 313)

4. I defer to the Englishtranslation of thescreenplay inShowalter (1993) forall citations ofdialogue.


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The exact moment of J-Ls sudden epiphany indeed, the notion that it is

sudden in the first place is put into question by the length of time

between J-Ls search for Franoise after Sunday mass and her chance

appearance on the Monday night. Even J-Ls voiceover bespeaks uncer-

tainty: his revelation begins ce jour-l (that day) when clearly the time

depicted is soir (evening).5 Yet this gap between J-Ls first vision and the

sudden announcement of his revelation, rather than being an ironic index

of his amour-propre, is in fact a purposeful ambiguity attesting to his para-doxical fidelity to his perfectionist self. To ask exactly when his perfec-

tionist epiphany takes place is to misunderstand the question, for, as we

have seen, the choice this epiphany prompts must be made in the contin-

ual present. Certainly there must be an instant when the idea arrives; it is

not the epiphany per se, however, but J-Ls continual choice to accept it

which matters. To allow us to intuit this, Rohmer keeps this moment tem-

porally and cinematically ambiguous. On the one hand, Rohmer attempts

to convince us of its exact temporality, for what remains true is that J-Ls

voice-over announcing the suddenness of his epiphany corresponds visu-

ally with the suddenness of Franoises appearance. On the other, it is dif-ficult not to remain incredulous about this moments blatantly contrived

contingency, and to therefore read it as ironic.

5. Even if ce jour-l refersonly to an exact datewithout any specifictemporal reference,uncertainty remainsas to exactly whenJ-Ls epiphany takesplace. Adding furtherconfusion is

T. Jefferson Klinestranslation ofcejour-l as On thatmorning, whichpushes this temporaldiscrepancy to itslimits. Kline obviouslyreads the filmironically, referring toJ-Ls epiphany as afantasy (Kline 1992:123).

Figure 2: Franoise Fabian in Ma nuit chez Maud (Courtesy of Les Films du Losange).


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But then again, how shouldsuch an inward moment be depicted? Like

Kierkegaards knight of faith, that all-too ordinary-looking man who

nonetheless carries within him at every moment a profound faith, J-Ls

faith is incommunicable through direct, rational means (Kierkegaard

1985: 6870). Perhaps it can be accessed via more natural means? Ennis

makes this very argument, contrasting Ma nuit chez Maud with Le Rayon

vert/The Green Ray (1986), another of Rohmers films in which epiphany

figures highly (Ennis 1996: 314). In the latter, the main protagonistwaits to see if the fabled green ray appears at sunset to guide her choice.

Ennis here is intimating that Rohmer uses nature in the raw to convince

his character, and us as well, of the legitimacy of her leap of faith,

whereas Franoises sudden appearance in Ma nuit chez Maudis merely an

unconvincing cinematic construct. What Ennis fails to understand is that

it is ambiguity and paradox which guarantees the strength of the leap,

and not merely an appeal to nature. Even though the character believes

she sees it, I find it difficult to tell, even after repeated viewings, whether

this ray appears at all; sometimes it does, sometimes it does not. It is this

wondrous incredulity, this faithful doubt in cinemas ability to record thealeatory in short, this embrace of paradox which allows us to sense

the metaphysical within prosaic physical reality.

This being said, Ma nuit chez Maud does in fact embrace the natural,

albeit ambiguously, in its quest to validate J-Ls epiphany. Colin Crisp reads

the film along a spectrum from the naturalized to the debased, the former

embodied by Franoise and the latter by Maud (Crisp 1988: 569).

Franoise lives in the mountainous countryside, Maud in the valley city of

Clermont-Ferrand: Franoise is more comfortable during the daytime,

Maud at night; one is blonde, the other brunette; one is religious, one

agnostic; one is reserved, one outgoing. While most cite this feminine

dichotomy as proof of the films ironic preference of Maud, this argument

uses the highly dubious claim that Franoise embodies a regressive image

corresponding to J-Ls expectations of the idyllic good wife and mother

(Cunningham 1986: 86). What guides this argument is not so much the

spiritual or moral depth of J-Ls choice, but critical opinions about its polit-

ical correctness. Frank Cunningham claims Franoise is subordinate to

Maud intellectually, professionally and visually, concluding that she fulfils

[J-Ls] unconsidered and largely irrational image of women (Cunningham

1986: 87). Joan Mellen goes further, maintaining that the Mauds of the

world possessing imagination, spontaneity, zest for life, are infinitely more

desirable than the passive, dull Franoises, who lack culture, wit, and allcharm (Mellen 1973: 154). Furthermore, Franoise is said to embody

J-Ls idyllic vision of nice Catholic girls who will not threaten too much

his natural timidity (Kline 1992: 140). Ennis takes this claim even fur-

ther, claiming that it might be easier to control a nice Catholic girl than

the intellectual Maud (Ennis 1996: 315). Putting aside for a moment

both the outrageous sexism and religious prejudice of these interpreta-

tions, these critics overlook the blatant fact that Franoise does not repre-

sent either ideal, for the epilogue reveals that she has had an affair with a

married man (and that the man in question is Mauds now ex-husband).

Ultimately, what these critics fail to recognize is that J-Ls choice is notbetween Franoise and Maud at all, but is instead the continual choice to


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remain faithful to himself. In effect, he chooses that is to say, he wagers

upon faith. There is always, of course, a tinge of scepticism involved in

such a reading, one heightened by the myriad of blatant lies J-L tells in

order to defend his choice. It is difficult to defend a faith propped up by lies,

and to be sure, there are at least three distinct moments in the film when

we can, objectively speaking, claim J-L has lied to others. But what does he

truly, inwardly intend by lying?

The first lie comes while J-L and his would-be matchmaker friend Vidalare having dinner at Mauds. The conversation turns to Pascals low opin-

ion of marriage. J-L states that he was thinking of this very thing the other

day at mass. There was a girl in front of me he begins, yet is quickly

chastised by Vidal: I should go to mass to look for girls!. J-L then changes

his story: I shouldnt say girl a young woman, with her husband. He

concludes by adding that it is a difficult impression to communicate.

Though the lie here is obvious the girl in question is clearly Franoise

its ethical implications are not so clear. We must therefore examine its inward

intent. It is perhaps not a lie at all, but instead what Jean-Jacques Rousseau

contrasts as a fiction, one stemming not from an intent to deceive, butfrom J-Ls moral instinct: a mixture of shame and embarrassment at being

teased (Rousseau 1979: 48). If so, then in its wake we may sense the first

inklings of perfectionism. Indeed, though he wants to, how in fact can J-L

relate the profundity of his experience to his friends, one agnostic, one athe-

ist? That it is a difficult impression to communicate is the best he can do,

for there is a certain incommunicable madness in forsaking ethics for the

bonds of faith a madness the film acknowledges in a sermon J-L and

Franoise attend just before J-Ls second lie:

Christian life is not a moral code. It is a life. And this life is an adventure,

the most glorious of all adventures, the adventure of saintliness. I am not

overlooking the fact that one must be mad to be a saintBut beyond our

fears, we must have a faith rooted in the God of Jesus Christ, a faith that

goes beyond the most fantastic hopes of menand that always this man,

this saint, whom we are called to be, this man is a man who on the one

hand is dominated by certain difficulties in livingwith his passions, his

weaknesses, is affections, but also in living insofar as he wants to be a disci-

ple of Jesus Christ.

(Showalter 1993: 97)

Saintliness is this movement of wanting, of acting as if, which embodiesthe paradox of faith. J-L understands this all too well. After Vidal leaves

J-L and Maud alone for the night, their conversation turns toward the

notion of saintliness. Though he claims he cannot aspire to sainthood,

J-L also claims to ask for grace to help in glimpsing its possibility. J-L here

attempts to articulate the paradox of faith, one which acknowledges the

impossibility of sainthood yet still struggles toward it. During their

exchange, Rohmers camera also struggles to embody the paradoxical

nature of this impossible possibility. As J-L denies wanting to being a

saint, he moves in front of a lamp which leaves a certain saintly halo

around his head and body. When Maud asks about grace, he walks out offrame. A slight, almost imperceptible reframing at the end of the shot,


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one centering the lamp within the image, highlights the constructed

nature of the effect. T. Jefferson Kline specifically refers to this scene, not-

ing an ironic distance in the cameras anticipation of J-Ls movements.

Klines halo, however, is not the backlighting provided by the lamp, but is

embodied instead by the painting of a white circle about twelve inches in

diameter on a dark background (Kline 1992: 139) hanging on the wall

beside it. In Klines reading of this scene, J-L repeatedly approaches a

position in which this circle would form a halo for the would-be, wouldntbe saint yet never quite manages to achieve the effect (Kline 1992: 139).

Kline concludes from this that the visual commentary proffered by the

image maker leaves little doubt that Jean-Louiss ethical and moral posi-

tion misses the point (Kline 1992: 139). Yet to make such a detailed

study of this scene, to grant it a meaning leaving little doubt, and then

to omit what, to my mind, is its most salient point that is, its conclusion

with J-L in front of the lamp is irresponsible. While Klines halo never

reaches J-L, my reading seems more in line with the paradoxical struggle

J-L faces, in that it both is and isnt a halo. It provides an actual halo of

light around J-L, yet Rohmers reframing attests to its terrestrial, prosaicdimension.

We now come to J-Ls final two lies. Ethically speaking, they are not as

easily dismissed as his first. In fact, they form the basis for most critical

Figure 3: The halo in Ma nuit chez Maud (Courtesy of Les Films du Losange).


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assumptions about the films ironic take on marriage and faith. The first

comes after Franoise reveals she has recently had an affair with a married

man. J-L lies to even the score: Im going to tell you a secret. The morning

we metI was coming from a girls house. We had slept together. He is

referring of course to the morning after his night chez Maud, when he actu-

ally speaks to Franoise for the first time. Of course, there is truth in this lie,

for J-L and Maud do actually sleep in the same bed, but that is all. The sec-

ond lie, a continuation and expansion of the first, occurs in the epilogueafter the couples chance meeting with Maud at the beach. As J-L begins to

tell Franoise the story of how he and Maud know each other, her nervous-

ness makes him realize her lover had in fact been Mauds ex-husband. J-Ls

voiceover explains the inward intent of his final lie:

I was about to say nothing happened when, all at once, I understood

Franoises uneasiness wasnt coming from what she was hearing about me

but from what she guessed I was hearing about her, and which I discovered

at that moment, and only at that momentand I said, quite to the con-

trary: Yes, that was my last fling.(Showalter 1993: 1034)

What is the proper interpretation of these lies? An ironic critical stance

sees in them the solidification of J-Ls self-abandonment to an ethic influ-

enced more by amour-propre than any sense of fidelity to his perfectionist

self. In line with this interpretation are Norman King, who claims J-L lied

to Franoise in order to gain her confidence (King 2000: 237);

Cunningham, who claims J-L lies merely to puff up his ego (Cunningham

1986: 88); and Kline, who insists J-L is lying about Mauds reputation,

and therefore that an injustice is perpetrated upon her (Kline 1992:

142). This stance must therefore extend to an ironic interpretation of the

films take on marriage as well. Critics who understand marriage in a

purely social/ethical sense must agree with Ennis that a couple whose

relationship depends on the mans lies about spending the night with a

woman hardly emerges as a religious example to follow (Ennis 1996:

315). Yet in all these lies, fictions and half-truths, we are nonetheless left

with the sense that they solidify the couples incommunicable bond of

faith. Neither of them knew whom each other had affairs with, but once

revealed (even though J-Ls is a lie and Franoises is a sin of omission)

there is no need to speak of them. Though perceived by both, these lies

mean little to their shared bond, so, like the inwardness of faith, theyremain unspoken. Twice they agree not to talk about it; J-L claims in the

end that it has absolutely no importance. Kline objects: How can this

can of worms be termed an effect of grace that passeth all understand-

ing? (Kline 1992: 142). Kline is mocking Crisp here, who concludes his

chapter on Ma nuit chez Maudthus:

So that it is this world Mauds world, of desire, appetite, and animality

which comes to seem artificial, perverse, a prison ruled by mechanistic logic,

and the other Franoises which comes to seem a release into the natural

fluent order of things, attained through a grace that passeth all understanding.(Crisp 1988: 59)


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Selected Papers from the Tenth Annual Florida State University Conference on

Literature and Film, Tallahassee: University Presses of Florida, pp. 7991.

Ennis, T. (1996), Textual Interplay: The Case of Rohmers Ma nuit chez Maudand

Conte dhiver, French Cultural Studies, 7:21, pp. 30919.

Goldmann, L. (1976), The Hidden God: A Study of Tragic Vision in the Penses of Pascal

and the Tragedies of Racine, New York: Humanities.

Kierkegaard, S. (1985), Fear and Trembling (trans. and intro. A. Hannay),

New York: Penguin.

King, N. (2000), Eye for Irony: Eric Rohmers Ma nuit chez Maud (1969), in

S. Hayward and G. Vincendeau (eds), French Cinema: Texts and Contexts, New

York: Routledge, pp. 23140.

Kline, T. J. (1992), Screening the Text: Intertextuality in New Wave French Cinema,

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Mellen, J. (1973), Women and Their Sexuality in the New Film, New York: Horizon

Press.

Merton, T. (1967), Mystics and Zen Masters, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Moriarty, M. (2003), Grace and Religious Belief in Pascal, in N. Hammond (ed.),

The Cambridge Companion to Pascal, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,pp. 14461.

Rousseau, J-J. (1979), The Reveries of the Solitary Walker (trans. C. E. Butterworth),

New York: New York University Press.

Showalter, E. (ed.) (1993), My Night at Mauds: Eric Rohmer, director, New

Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.

Suggested citation

Norton, G. W. (2009), Moral perfectionism in Eric Rohmers Ma nuit chez Maud,

Studies in French Cinema, 9: 1, pp. 2536, doi: 10.1386/sfc.9.1.25/1

Contributor details

Glen W. Norton is an Instructor in Film Studies at the Department of

Communications, Popular Culture and Film, Brock University, Canada. He has

published in various journals including Post Script, Theory@Buffalo , Senses of

Cinema and CinemaScope. Since 1996 he has maintained and edited Godard=

Cinema=Godard, a primarily academic hub of information pertaining to the work of

Jean-Luc Godard (http://www.geocities.com/glen_norton).

Contact: Department of Communication, Popular Culture & Film, Brock University,

500 Glenridge Avenue, St Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1.E-mail: [email protected].


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glen w. norton - moral perfection in eric rohmer's ma nuit chez maud

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