Moliere
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Movie Reviews of Moliere
Movie Review: Please Buy
Summary: 5 Stars
There is everything else and there is This movie...you need to buy and preferably, from this seller too. thank youMovie Review: Moliere .......Bravo !
Summary: 5 Stars
This was a very enjoyable film and one not to be missed . Highly entertaining and the acting is superb .Movie Review: Molière dans l'Amour
Summary: 4 Stars
In case you were wondering it is not official and there is now a sub-genre of historical fiction films that we will call "Shakespeare in Love." These are films in which case we learn that (gasp!) the life of a famous author parallels one of their most famous works. For Wm. Shakespeare it was a mixture of "Romeo & Juliet" and "Twelfth Night." "Becoming Jane" purports to find the real Mr. Darcy in the life of Jane Austen. Here, despite a title suggesting that this is a look at the entire life of the celebrated French playwright, we discover that "Tartuffe," arguably the best of the comedies of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (the artist known as Molière), was based on a personal tragedy. This, of course, echoes the whole "laugh clown even though your heart is breaking" idea personified by Canio's "Vesti la giubba" aria from "Pagliacci," which is clearly a key element of this particular sub-genre. I bring all of this up because if I had not seen the other films cited above, then I might have a higher estimation of "Molière." Instead, I am wondering if there will be similar films made about the attendant ironies between creators and creations for the likes of Sophocles, Henrik Ibsen, or anybody else that comes to mind down to Stephen King. Just imagine the existentialist trauma of "Samuel Beckett in Love."
"Molière" begins in 1658, when the playwright and actor, played by Romain Duris, returns to Paris from touring France with his company of players. He has been given a theater by the King and instead of doing one of the farces for which he has become well known, Molière aspires to write something better. Then a young woman shows up and requests that he accompany her to the deathbed of her mother. We then go back a dozen years when Molière troupe is so bankrupt that he is thrown into prison (but not after getting a lot of laughs from his audience). Molière's is saved by the wealthy Monsieur Jourdain (Fabrice Luchini), who likes to hire experts to help with his various needs and who requires a playwright to help him rehearse a play he has written to seduce the beautiful widow Célimène (Ludivine Sagnier). The fact that Jourdain is married to Elmire (Laura Morante) requires the playwright to do so incognito. Hence he presents himself to the rest of Jourdain's family as a priest named...Tartuffe.
As was the case with "Shakespeare in Love," where the more you remembered about "Romeo & Juliet" and "Twelfth Night," the more you could appreciate what was happening in the story, the same applies here with regards to Molière's "Tartuffe ou l'Imposteur" ("Tartuffe or the Hypocrite"). For example, the name Tartuffe is not the only one to be recognized from the play and provides your first major clue as to who the playwright's love interest will be in the film. Those who are familiar with Molière's work will also see echoes of scenes from both "Le Misanthrope" ("The Misanthrope"), and "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme" ("The Bourgeois Gentleman"). This is not to say that this 2007 film does not work unless you know your Molière, but rather to say that there are levels to these film only accessible to those few person.
Director Laurent Tirard ("The Story Of My Life / Mensonges et trahisons et plus si affinites"), who co-wrote the screenplay with Grégoire Vigneron, is basically trying to turn the unknown part of Molière's life into one of the playwright's comedy of manners. The trick, of course, is for the cast to act this out in a much more realistic manner than we would see watching a Molière play performed on stage. Consequently the proceeding are relatively sedate and despite the inherent irony of the situation, not as comic as a Molière comedy. However, that is necessary to set up the final scenes of the film, both in the past and the "present," where things take a more serious turn. I actually liked the ending(s), considerably more than the set up. Duris' best moments are the few where his character gets to show his comic genius on stage, but it is Luchini who turns in the film's best performance as Jourdain. Since the film is in French with subtitles, that probably increases the odds that those on this side of the Pond who decide to check it out will do so because these like Molière's plays and will appreciate all the nods and winks ot his work. But those who are starting to overdose on these authors in love movies might not want to bother with another one.
Movie Review: Life Is a Farce
Summary: 4 Stars
`Molière' is delightful. Yes, the man, the French playwright, who has given us great farcical gems, but the movie, too. Whimsical, playful, and every bit endearing, `Molière ' draws from two historically missing years in the famous man's life and does fanciful conjecture much the way 'Shakespeare in Love' did for the great Bard of Stratford.
In the "Special Features" portion, director and co-writer, Laurent Tirard, explains that they indeed fill in the blanks for his missing life by having the playwright meet the people who later will become characters in his plays.
At first we see the man starchily serious. He tries to sell tragedies to an acting troupe who more objectively know their best suit. The king offers his patronage, but is as wise as his actors for insisting he stick to farces. On tour, people throw food at the writer, who is acting in one of his own plays, trying to play it straight. It is only when a performance is interrupted by the police that Moliere comes to his senses. Confronted about his debt, he makes sport of the police, earning his first laughs and cheers of the evening.
In a way he garners his "out of jail free" card. For a wealthy patron, Mssr. Jourdain (Fabrice Lucini) has seen his performance and sees his potential. He gives Moliere an offer he can't refuse: He'll support him and get him out of prison, but Moliere must perform a play he has written for his beloved wife. He's loathe to the idea until Jourdain threatens to put him back in debtors' prison. Yet, his biggest challenge is trying to stay hidden from his wife, so she will be surprised.
It doesn't take long for Moliere to be discovered by Caroline Jourdain, but he rises to the occasion by hiding under an assumed name, "Tartuffe," and sports false pretenses as a religious zealot, sought for the family's spiritual guidance. (`Tartuffe' is the only Moliere play I've seen although I've read another.)
From here it seems ever more like Shakespeare's own `The Comedy of Errors (Signet Classics)' as romantic entanglements ensue and ripen, and people's motives for love and money are eventually sorted out. Maybe not of the same caliber, but much ado about something along those plot lines.
Not since the spirited 'Casanova' has a film been so fun and handsomely decorated. 'Moliere' is a beautiful French film that is substantive enough to relish for its laughs as well as for its inspiring connections to Moliere's plays. If you remotely enjoyed `Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story,' you will thoroughly enjoy `Molière'.
Movie Review: A Dazzling Period Piece: Filling in the Missing Pieces of Molière's Career
Summary: 4 Stars
'Molière' is a treat for the eyes as well as a tickler for historical manipulation and in the hands of writers Laurent Tirard and Grégoire Vigneron the cinematic version of the 'lost years' of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin AKA Molière's life abounds in superb entertainment. If the story becomes a bit too convoluted at times, trying to paste together a story that parallels the French playwright's most famous plays, `Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme' and `Tartuffe' as the basis for the missing portion of Molière's life, and drags on a bit too long at two hours, it is never less that gorgeous to look at and witty to hear.
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin or Molière (Romain Duris) is an actor and playwright for a comedy troupe that tours the provinces of France, spending himself into debtor's prison. His mysterious disappearance from prison is the time this film uses to explain how Molière was enticed by the wealthy M. Jourdain (Fabrice Luchini) to travel to his estate for the purpose of teaching the dilettante how to write plays and to act in order to win the affection of a wealthy young Célimène (Ludivine Sagnier) while keeping his daughter and his wife Elmire (Laura Morante) at bay. There are many subplots that tend to distract but in the end the 'play' created by Molière's presence and interaction with all of the other characters provides the life lessons and food for material that leads Molière to be the greatest of French playwrights.
The cast is superb, the visual effects are opulent, the musical score is period correct, and the cinematography finds a fine balance between the lush vistas of the countryside and estates and the grimy realism of the prison and small theaters. Perhaps the story is not historically correct, but no one really knows the true events in the missing portion of Molière's life, and this version is at least plausible and thought provoking. In French with English subtitles. Grady Harp, January 08