Eric Rohmer’s unflinching take on twentieth century masculinity — 1970’s Le Genou De Claire — needs to be watched with a special pair of spectacles. Like the ones in sci-fi classic They Live, this pair should filter out what the protagonist Jerome thinks his world looks like, and shows what the world around him truly is.
Self-Delusion and Masculinity
Jerome appears to be a man in his late 30s or early 40s (the actor who plays him, Jean-Claude Brialy, was 37 when the film was released). He is engaged to be married, though we never see his fiancé. During a visit to Lake Annecy he bumps into friend, Aurora, with whom he begins to discuss love and relationships. In her presence Jerome is supremely self-assured and moves with the confidence of a Greek God.
In their discussions Jerome repeatedly comes across as someone who pretends to understand commitment and relationships, but only because he strips all vitality and unpredictability out of them. He condenses all commitment out of commitment and seems to bring it down to a level of only non-resentment.
And this is how we first start to see in him the need to be in control even if he is not fully cognizant of other people’s needs. It soon becomes evident that a lot of his confidence comes from un-seeing Aurora, and indeed un-seeing a lot of himself as well.
Later in the film Jerome talks about his dalliances with Laura and Claire as experiments that he carries out on behalf of Aurora (like some twisted production of Pygmalion). He distances himself from not only the very real relationships he enters into, but also from himself. He splits himself into himselfand the character. A very difficult juggling act, and one that doesn’t convince.
In fact, Laura, who is many years his junior, outclasses him with her more intimate and well-worn experiences of love and relationships. She is the child of broken marriages and is her mother’s confidante. Even though she is perhaps only around fifteen years old (the actress was 18 when the film was released), she has experienced more of love’s slings and arrows than Jerome.
It is entirely possible that Jerome has also experienced similar heartbreaks, but neither he nor the film gives us that information. Maybe it is because Jerome is carrying wounds of his own that he has reduced his notions of a marriage to what can least hurt him. He tries to seduce younger women because he wants to feel like he is desirable and in control. Despite his beautiful appearance, his behaviour is like that of someone who is insecure and not a little desperate to be fawned upon.
In fact, many times Aurora taunts him and his displays of confidence but Jerome misses her tone entirely. Is this because he is insensitive to her words, or because he is always in a state of un-seeing, un-hearing.
History and Masculinity
To make himself feel proud and strong, Jerome ends up breaking down Claire. He tells her about her boyfriend’s betrayal and when she is reduced to tears he gets his chance to caress her knee.
When he is describing this to Aurora, he uses words that evoke combat, like thrust and parry, and tries hard to explain how he did it for the young woman’s own good. She needed this lesson, he feels, and his cruelty was actually benevolence.
Here Jerome enacts the role of some kind of legendary knight and also a benevolent god. Similarly at other points in the film he displays a combination of protectiveness and possessiveness.
Here Jerome is a victim of historical male conceits of battle and conquering. He is unable to accept rejection so instead he crushes Claire’s spirit before taking his chance. In his mind he feels he is taking down his competitor for the maiden’s love, Claire’s boyfriend. But at the end of the film she reconciles with her boyfriend. Whatever her reasons, things did not play out like Jerome predicted. He is not the omniscient god he wished he was.
His conquest, so nobly built up and so eloquently described, was to caress a woman’s knee uninterrupted for a minute or so. For this he had to not only crush her spirit, but also reduce her down to just her knee. Synecdoche, Annecy.
Biology and Masculinity
While we don’t know about Jerome’s inner life and history, we can see that physically he is on the cusp of the stereotypical mid-life crisis. White has started appearing on his hair and beard and he is about to settle down to a life of domesticity (allegedly).
His sense of inadequacy is exacerbated by the appearance of two younger men, the boyfriends of Laura and Claire. They are young, fit and tanned, and they also possess lush heads of hair. No whites.
It’s not too far a stretch to see this as a contest between thickly-maned lions. Ones with blonde locks and one with a greying mane. They play and dance, while Jerome can’t seem to find his rhythm. Their sense of attachment is light or non-existent, while Jerome is unable to save himself from sinking in to his obsessions.
Claire’s boyfriend, in particular, is rugged and effortlessly unattached. Laura’s boyfriend, whatever little we see of him, is more attached and quieter. One can imagine he will grow up somewhat insecure about baring himself. Perhaps he is a younger version of Jerome himself, one who will fall into the trap of over-compensation and competition later in life.
Aging is something that men and women struggle with, but in different ways. What Jerome is looking for does not seem to match what women of his cohort will offer and vice-versa. He hopelessly flings himself into competition with men that he cannot match on their terms and for women he cannot possess.
Somewhere, Jerome is a victim of his own unrelenting biology. His white hairs can probably command him in ways that his grey cells cannot.
Jerome’s Heel
To this viewer it feels like Jerome’s romp is not an alarming sequence of conquests (like it appears at first), but a cry for help from someone who is unable to define his own masculinity. He is someone unable to separate virility from youth, who is clinging on to centre stage in a community show instead of finding his own light.
As concerns his fiancé — either she exists and he is not truly committed to her (which is frightening enough), or she does not even exist but is someone he has invented as a prop in his constructed narrative.
With Laura, despite his rather predatory attempts, he comes across as hopelessly outclassed and outwitted. He comes out of that scandalous relationship looking much weaker than when he went in.
With Claire and her boyfriend, Jerome resembles the comical character of a parent or head-master trying desperately to discipline his rowdy brood and, once again, failing miserably. He cannot command respect, and he cannot command affection. He is unwelcome and shut out.
In fact, the other men shown in the film who are his age and older, may not be as fit and well-dressed as Jerome, but they seem to have progressed closer to healthy and hopefully genuine relationships than Jerome does.
Jerome’s sights may have been set on Claire’s knee, but that can hardly be the target of a mature man’s life.