REVIEW: Élisabeth by Éric Rohmer

It is fairly well known that a certain Greek and Latin professor named Maurice Schérer, born in Tulle in 1920, was also the iconic filmmaker Éric Rohmer, who came into being in Paris in the late 1940s. What is less known is the fact this same soul also briefly inhabited the role of novelist Gilbert Cordier, author of Élisabeth (Gallimard, 1946). Although many people, including his biographers, see Schérer’s forays into fiction as a sort of side dalliance, or at best, a training ground for his masterpieces of the silver screen, the text of Élisabeth (newly reissued by McNally Editions) deserves consideration as something much more significant than simply a footnote to a film career.