I recently saw the film Molière {mohl-yair'} and although this film seems to be a highly fictionalized account of his actual life, it is incredibly difficult to not get completely swept by the adaptation of the possibility that Tartuffe ou l'Imposteur (Tartuffe or the Hypocrite) may have been inspired by true events for this masterful playwright. I found myself laughing the loudest in certain moments, terribly touched (the eyes have it thanks to great acting done by Duris and Morante), and moved to tears in the end.
The film opens with credits, in which embroidered fabrics sinuate in slow motion to a majestic score (beautifully done by Frédéric Talgorn). The time is 1658, and playwright/actor Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (Romain Duris), aka Molière, returns to Paris with his theater troupe after 13 years of honing their craft on tour in the fringes of the city. Farces are what they have become known for, and the king has given them a theater in the capital. But Molière wants to switch to more serious fare: He believes only tragedy is true theater, true art.
However, he abruptly changes his mind after being summoned to the deathbed of an unseen woman. When Molière returns, he announces to the actors in his troupe that rehearsals for their next production, a comedy after, will begin the next day.
The time and pace then switches to 13 years earlier. We see a young Molière pathetically declaiming for the great unwashed when two members of the court, arrive and join him onstage to demand he pay his debts. Through prancing and mimicry, Molière exploits the serious duo with pre-Chaplinesque shtick. Shortly after, he is imprisoned.
He's bailed out by a man who had been watching him the previous evening, who takes him to meet the ridiculously wealthy Jourdain (Fabrice Luchini). Jourdain has covered the younger man's debts, in exchange, he expects Molière to "coach him." Jourdain's goal is to credibly perform a self-penned one-act play destined to impress the enticing Celimene (Ludivine Sagnier), a widowed marquise with whom he is deeply, improbably smitten.
Jourdain is married to Italian beauty Elmire (Laura Morante), by whom he has two daughters. In order to circumvent the suspicion of his wife while Molière's in residence honing Jourdain's nonexistent acting skills, he makes Molière pose as a priest, Monsieur Tartuffe.
The "villain" in the film is played by the well-connected Dorante (Edouard Baer) whom Jourdain gullibly believes is paving the way for Celimene to acknowledge her secret admirer's affections.
Molière buffs will delight in locating bits and pieces of his plays in this imaginary venture. But no prior knowledge of the man or his writing is required to enjoy the film and fare, which was inspired by the fact that the cash-strapped playwright vanished for a small bit when he was 22.
For those looking for a short history lesson, Molière, whose real name was Jean Baptiste Poquelin, composed 12 of the most durable and penetratingly satirical full-length comedies of all time, some in rhyming verse, some in prose, as well as six shorter farces and comedies. As a comic dramatist he ranks with such other distinctive masters of the genre as Aristophanes, Plautus, and George Bernard Shaw. He was also the leading French comic actor, stage director, and dramatic theoretician of the 17th century.
In a theatrical period, the early baroque, dominated by the formal neoclassical tragedies of Mairet, Rotrou, du Ryer, Pierre and Thomas Corneille, and Racine, Molière affirmed the potency of comedy as a serious, flexible art form. He also wrote a number of pastorals and other indoor and outdoor divertissements, such as his popular comedy-ballets, that depended on a formidable array of stage machinery (mostly imported from Italy) capable of providing swift and startling changes of sumptuous scenic effects. In his time in Paris, Molière had completely reformed French comedy
Though he received the adulation of the court and Parisians, Molière's satires attracted criticisms from moralists and the Church. Tartuffe ou l'Imposteur (Tartuffe or the Hypocrite) and its attack on religious hypocrisy roundly received condemnations from the Church while Don Juan was banned from performance. Molière's hard work in so many theatrical capacities began to take its toll and by 1667, he had to take a break from the stage.
Molière, would tragically die of tuberculosis, and while this isn’t explicitly portrayed in the film, there is an exploration of this pain in his life. In 1673, during a production of his final play, Le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), Molière was seized by a coughing fit and a haemorhage while playing the hypochondriac Argan. He finished the performance but collapsed again and died a few hours later. There is speculation as to how he may have contracted the illness and the film does give one possibility, even if it is highly fictionalized.
I must warn, although the trailer is below – it does this film (nor the actors) absolutely no justice, which I suppose is a good thing, so often I see trailers which show the best parts…certainly not the case here.
