Éric Rohmer with Kierkegaard and Nietzsche: Desire, Chance and Freedom

This article examines Éric Rohmer's cinema through the perspective of existential reflection, showing how his films engage with morality, faith and chance in everyday life. With particular attention to Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, I trace how these perspectives unfold across his major cycles. In the series of films known as the “Six Moral Tales” (1962–1972), Rohmer's protagonists embody a Kantian concern with self-imposed moral law, testing principles against desire and circumstance. In the later “Comedies and Proverbs” (1981–1987) and “Tales of the Four Seasons” (1990–1998), this framework widens: characters confront contingency and coincidence, evoking Kierkegaard's notion of faith as a leap beyond rational proof and Nietzsche's affirmation of chance as necessity. Through chance encounters and games of probability, Rohmer transforms ordinary experiences into existential moments, showing freedom not as certainty but as a negotiation between desire, chance and belief.