My Night at Maud's (1969)

You know people who say they're "spiritual" but not religious? Back in those days, people tended to be religious but not spiritual.

My Night at Maud's is about a devout Catholic who hangs around with his Marxist friend and his atheist friend Maud. They sit in her apartment and have a long conversation about life and love.


One thing they always make fun of on Mystery Science Theater 3000 is scenes of people traveling by car. They think you should just cut to where ever it is they were going. The audience will figure out that that they drove there.

That didn't work in one movie, The Detective with Frank Sinatra in the title role. I had no idea how his character got anywhere. Did he drive himself? How was he at finding his way around and coping with traffic? And what was the parking situation in New York?

One of Eric Rohmer's trademarks was he would show people driving. With this movie, so much of it was long conversations in a couple of apartments, showing the guy driving really helped. It gave it a sense of location. If it were just scenes in people's apartments, they might have filmed it anywhere.

Rohmer's known for long conversations in his movies, but they did get out of the house more than I'm letting on. The movie even had weather in it. It was snowing. I watched it because it was a Christmas movie.


They talked philosophy at one point. They talked about Pascal's wager. I googled it. Part of it was, Pascal argued that it doesn't cost you anything to believe in God, on the off chance that God does exist, you could get eternal life out of the deal, so you may as well be a believer. He doesn't mention tithing or church-going. And the movie goes on to show that religious belief can have a negative affect on your life.

But it dawned on me that that I should start buying lottery tickets again. If I don't win, the cost of losing is minimal and if I win it would be really, really great. There are people who dismiss lottery players as mathematically inept, but Pascal had a formula for it.

I don't know what this stuff means, but it looks mathematical.

Of course, the Catholic guy in the movie said he didn't like Pascal's thing for this reason, talking about religious belief like he was playing the lottery. I don't know that religious belief is entirely voluntary anyway. You can't make yourself believe or completely drive it out of your head if you were ever a believer.

The Marxist guy, by the way, related it to a quote from Lenin about the Russian Revolution.


It was a horrible, horrible time. Even Marxist college professors wore suits and ties just to hang around with their friends. They make the Catholic guy out to be some kind of prude because he won't lie in bed with Maud, but I don't think I would either wearing a suit. In America, there were public service announcements warning people not to smoke in bed, something the French were apparently oblivious to. They didn't wear seat belts and at one point the guy was driving in the snow like it was dry pavement.