The story [of The Marquise of O …] operates through the enclosure and reconciliation of contradictions: the Marquise's innocence, yet her pregnancy; her parents' belief in her, yet their doubt because of her condition; the Count's act of rescue, yet his act of ravishment….

These contradictions create irony as well as complexity; and if you then add the straightforwardness of style and the sense that both the style and the irony are pushing the whole toward the sources of moral perception, you have a forerunner of Kafka….

So there is an overarching contradiction in Kleist's novella: the paradox that through neoclassic means the beginnings of the modern age are becoming manifest. And thus the comparison of Kleist and Kafka is relevant to the continuing importance of Kleist. Rohmer's central achievement is that he has comprehended all these matters and has fixed them, beautifully, on the screen. (p. 20)

Rohmer has...