Few filmmakers have taken the principle of the "talking picture" so far as Eric Rohmer, the internationally reknowned director of the Moral Tales, Comedies and Proverbs, and Tales of the Four Seasons cycles. Occasionally dismissed as precious or overly literary, Rohmer’s features may leave the impression that there is more to listen to than to look at. Yet as the secretive director points out, dialogue is no less engaging than the best gunfights, and if his characters prefer discussing love to making it, they are no less the "heroes" of the stories they tell.