IT'S ONLY SLIGHTLY IRONIC that Eric Rohmer's last film, 2007's The Romance of Astrea and Celadon, was a pastoral whimsy set in a fanciful notion of 5th-century Gaul. That's certainly not the turf where the brilliant yet under-appreciated writer-director, who died at 89 on Jan. 11, made his reputation. He was known for scrupulously up-to-date tales of romantic intrigue, set in such everyday climes as Paris, its suburbs, and the vacation spots favored by its educated, middle-class residents.

Despite a goofy cross-dressing plot derived from Honor´ d'Urf´'s 17th-century novel, Astrea and Celadon is closer to Rohmer's usual concerns than were the two historical films that preceded it, Triple Agent and The Lady and the Duke. The movie returned, however light-heartedly, to the themes of the director's first hit, 1969's My Night at Maud's: confounding lust, sexual fidelity, and religion. It's just that, instead of discussing Pascal, the characters in Astrea and Celadon gab about the supposed superiority of Druidic monotheism to Roman polytheism.

My Night at Maud's was the fourth of Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales," although only the second feature in the series. (The first two were shorts.) In some ways, the "Moral Tales" established the model for Rohmer's subsequent movies, most of them part of two series, "Comedies and Proverbs" and "Tales of Four Seasons." In making all three sets of romantic comedies, the director worked quickly and cheaply, using existing locations. He was able to move fast because of rigorous planning, considerable rehearsing, and meticulous scripting. Unlike such cohorts as Godard, Rivette, and Resnais, Rohmer didn't react to current events, (usually) ask his performers to improvise, or batter the wall separating the audience from the action. Although dubbed an "intimist," he avoided closeups, considering them contrary to way real people see each other. And he, decades before Dogma, rarely used music that didn't come from an on-screen source.

Yet realism wasn't always a bedrock principle. Such Rohmer period pieces as Perceval and The Marquise of O... are as other-worldly as his best-known work is quotidian, while The Lady and the Duke relies on CGI almost as heavily as Avatar. And though his contemporary films were grounded in daily life, their plots sometimes flirted with fairy-tale sweetness. The happy outcomes of such comedies as A Winter's Tale and The Green Ray (aka Summer) weren't all that distant from the blithe, old-old-school resolution of Astrea and Celadon.

Most of Rohmer's features were released commercially in the U.S., although sometimes just barely. That many of his big American successes came in the late 1960s and early '70s has nothing to do with the quality of his later work. He was marketable back then because Hollywood was foundering, and foreign-language art films were hip, smart, and erotic. (Rohmer's movies rarely included makeout scenes, but they were replete with beautiful women, some of them in a state of undress. Pauline at the Beach was just the best-known of Rohmer's movies to be played partially in the nude.) It could be argued that Rohmer's work got better and better as it became less and less visible in the U.S., where the major studios regrouped with Jaws and Star Wars, establishing the less-talk/more-rock model that still dominates today.

The box-office hits among the "Moral Tales" were My Night at Maud's, Claire's Knee, and Love in the Afternoon (aka Chloe in the Afternoon), all parables of men tempted from commitment by a charming young woman (or a part thereof). Rohmer generally kept his underlying strategies to himself, but some have claimed that all three are glosses on F.W. Murnau's 1927 Sunrise, a silent stunner with a similar plot. The "Moral Tales" aren't misogynist; the lesser-seen The Collector is even remarkably pro-female for its time (1966). But they are nonetheless stories of men, in which women exist primarily to illustrate masculine vanity and delusion.

Female characters step forward in the next two series, which makes them both more interesting and more versatile. Some of these films were about women seeking romance (The Good Marriage, Autumn Tale), and others about men being guided in that pursuit by a woman or girl (The Aviator's Wife, A Summer's Tale). There were even a few in which young women had to find their own way (The Green Ray, Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle). Whatever the setup, the scripts proceeded through knotty, gently hilarious conversational thickets to moments of insight. True love was hard won, albeit with words rather than light-sabers.

A Catholic who came to prominence with a movie in which two people sublimate desire by discussing Pascal's wager, Rohmer has been labeled a conservative, both for his ideas and his style. But this teller of "moral tales" was not a strict moralist. He observed people, mostly young ones with fluid possibilities, as they struggled to do the right thing. If they failed, he didn't condemn or punish. Of those Rohmer characters who might be called "sinners," most prosper. Indeed, one of the best-rewarded of them is the protagonist of A Winter's Tale, who has what some would consider irrefutable evidence of misconduct: a daughter born out of wedlock. In the director's universe, redemption is always possible, and doesn't require waiting for a possible afterlife.

Rohmer's films were sometimes dismissed as wordy (which they are) and inert (which they aren't). Superficial viewers missed two things: that the director's scripts are adroitly constructed, and that they apply to their clashes of conversation structural techniques from more action-oriented genres. (A devotee of Hitchcock, Rohmer co-wrote, with Claude Chabrol, a study of the suspense maestro's aesthetic.) As for the filmmaker's method, it was almost punk: a DIY approach that kept him at work — 23 features plus dozens of shorts and TV programs — while others scraped for financing. And when he took a break from his let's-talk-about-love "tales," Rohmer turned avant-garde, even if he did so with stories invariably set in the past.

Among the recent English-language directors who emulated Rohmer are Neil LaBute, Richard Curtis, Henry Jaglom, Richard Linklater (Before Sunrise just had to feature a beautiful Frenchwoman), and Chris Rock (whose I Think I Love My Wife is a remake of Love in the Afternoon). None of them came close. The secret to a great Rohmer film is the inconspicuous way it moves from seemingly casual chatter to utterly crucial decision. Like a thriller director, Rohmer baits the trap and lures the viewer, slowly but with utmost precision. Few "comic" filmmakers do this so well; Rohmer's only serious rival may be Yasujiro Ozu.

There is pleasure throughout Rohmer's contemporary films. (I confess to finding his period movies admirable, but less engaging.) Beautiful places, beautiful people, a vision that conveys the enchantment of the everyday. But there comes a moment when the situation is not merely diverting, and the characters not just attractive and (usually) likable. You realize the conversation is not casual, and not open-ended. There has always been only one place it can go. The ultimate pleasure, then, is watching a beautifully modulated scenario reach its impeccable climax. In stories of people who are tentative, unformed, or confused — anything but sure of themselves — Rohmer achieved a breathtaking certainty.