About 15 years before he made any feature films, the future leading French director Eric Rohmer (1920-2010) tried to become a novelist. His timing could not have been worse. It was August 1944, during the Liberation of Paris. “The bullets were still flying,” Rohmer recalled, and he dared not look out his window, for fear of catching a stray. So he stayed at his desk. “Is it even possible to write about what’s unfolding at present?” he asked himself. “No, it’s not — you need to take a step back.”