As Aventuras de Molière

While New York Times film critic A.O. Scott may rail at the "fundamentally bogus and anti-literary idea that the great writers of the past wrote what they knew", there is still a pervasive longing out there to discover the connection between an author's life and his work. The audacious premise that great art reflects an author's life experience is promoted in films such as John Madden's Shakespeare in Love and now in Moliére, Laurent Tirard's speculative costume drama of the great French playwright. While the suggestion that the mystery of genius lies in a secret love affair borders on the banal, these films attempt to give us a sense of who these great artists were as people and what may have been at least one source of their inspiration.

Like Shakespeare in Love, Moliére uses guesswork, imagination, and creativity to fill in the blanks when the facts are not readily available. What we do know about the life of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin known to the world as Moliére is scanty. In 1644 he was a 22-year old actor who spent some time in debtor's prison after his touring company went bankrupt. After that the young actor and aspiring playwright disappeared for several months before he surfaced in the provinces. It was there that he toured with his Illustre Theatre for 13 years before arriving in Paris convinced that tragedy was the only true theater.

Of course, what is not known is what inspired him to take a comic turn, but Tirard allows us to imagine characters and situations that might have led to such great works as "Tartuffe" and "Le Bourgeois Gentlhomme" and 28 other plays which roast the upper classes as affected hypocrites and worse. Soulfully and convincingly performed by Romain Duris, who has been known for dramatic roles such as the pianist in The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Moliére is rescued from prison by a bumbling aristocrat named Monsieur Jourdain (Fabrice Luchini). Jourdain has written a one-act play that he wants to perform at the salon of the haughty widow, marquise Celimene (Ludivine Sagnier) with whom he is smitten.

Paying Moliére's debts, he hires him to teach him the skills of an actor while tricking his graceful wife Elmire (Laura Morante) into believing that he is a priest named Mr. Tartuffe who has come only to counsel his daughter in matters of religion. This ruse runs into problems when Tartuffe/Moliére's falls in love with Madame Jourdain; however their relationship becomes a transforming experience for the actor/playwright when she suggests that he concentrate on writing a different kind of comedy, one that probes the emotions of a drama.

Complications are plentiful as the story moves from comedy to farce, to tragedy and back again with the assistance of a scheming count named Dorante (Edouard Baer) whose goal is to marry his son Thomas (Gillian Petrovsky) to Jourdain's daughter Henriette (Fanny Valette) regardless of the fact that Henriette is in love with her music teacher Valere (Gonzague Requillart). Moliére may not fully capture the true essence of the French author but the fact that it does suggest a writer of depth, wit, and inspiration may entice the viewer to seek out the source material first hand. Granted that the film is speculation, not biography, but it is art and the payoff is a romantic and richly entertaining tribute to one of the greatest playwrights in history.

Charming story of a time. Another Moliere, in a beautiful game of desires, ambition, errors and sentimental confusion. A play by Moliere with the author as character. Comedy and description of society, drama and piece of biographic way, mirror and childish trip,it is a "cake" with many spices. Romain Duris is seductive and brilliant, part of french science to make national history pages in small and delicate jewels. The love is cover of a nice exercise to define a culture. A bait in different nuances.A travel in the spirit of transformation age. A mask of a great play writer. Picture of a metamorphosis. A slice of cake with pieces of forest fruits.

Molière 'Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme' and 'Tartuffe' and his own life M Jourdaine a complete fool

You do not have to be familiar with the works of Molière to enjoy this film, though it's much, much more likely you will if you have seen or read his plays. This is because the plot and style of this film is very strongly inspired by his plays--particularly "Le Bourgeoise Gentilhomme" and "Tartuffe". So, for the unfamiliar, I'd rate the film a 6 and for the lovers of Molière, I'd score this film an 8.

The film is a tad difficult to follow as it does not follow a liner timeline. In fact it bounces around a bit. This is hard to follow because Romain Duris (as Molière) looks pretty much the same through the 13 year course of the film. When the film begins, it is at the present time. Then, Molière has a flashback where he remembers what life was like BEFORE he became famous--13 years earlier. At that time, he was briefly in prison for bad debts (something the author actually did have happen to him) but was rescued by a rich member of the Bourgeoise, Mr. Jourdaine. However, Jourdaine did not do this for strictly noble reasons--he wanted Molière to help him in his efforts to win the heart of a young woman. However, Jourdaine is already married (to a lovely lady he sadly neglects) and there isn't a prayer the young woman will return his advances. What's to become of all this? See the film.

The story plays much like a production by Molière--combined with a few facts from the playwright's life. In the end, everything is wrapped up perfectly and the film is lovely--with great sets and a terrific script. But it's also the sort of costume drama that might bore many--as most folks (especially non-French viewers) today probably have little, if any, interest in this sort of thing. It's a shame, as it is quite lovely and engaging--particularly as the movie progresses.

Laurent Tirard's costume comedy "Molière" finds comparison with "Shakespeare in Love" rather easily, and perhaps most dauntingly, to its legendary subject's own durable narratives. But while there's not as much details missing from the 17th-century French playwright Moliere's (Romain Duris) life as there was in Shakespeare's, there's still ample room for a fanciful imagination and conjecture.

The window is small, for Tirard and co-writer Grégoire Vigneron to present the missing weeks of Molière's life after his brief imprisonment for not paying his debts, just before he embarked with his troupe on a 13-year tour of the French provinces before his triumphant return to the theatre scene in Paris. The driving point in this film, as it was in "Shakespeare in Love", is how great art tends to imitate life and how muses tend to stem from elaborate romances, which in this case is Molière's torrid affair with the wealthy Monsieur Jourdain's (Fabrice Luchini) wife Elmire (an enthralling Laura Morante).

Tirard's first salvo and indeed the one that sustains its premise throughout the end, is his understanding that a film about Molière has to be a farce, an important element that shapes his later and most important works when romance, gender politics and the moral bankruptcy of the French aristocracy become his staples. As a staunch tragedian, he gets an early education in the deviancy of the social class from the misguidedly smitten Jourdain who picks him out from his cell to help him perfect his self-written play to impress the blueblood snob, Célimene (Ludivine Sagnier). But "Molière", for all its charm and spirited performances does play rather loose in its opening hour, setting up the strands to be tangled in its second half. The modern transposition of the ringing hypocrisy of the rapacious upper class and eager capitalists ingratiating themselves into a privileged circle offers up its most scintillating prospects.

Nonetheless, flawed in his initial insistence of tragedy as the spirit of true art, it would seem that while Molière's life is a stage, he's not yet in on the act. Duris plays his character with an insinuating intelligence, cynically wearing a scowl on his face but a twinkle of hope in his eyes, all with a precise intensity that threatens to spill over. A hard sell for a light comedy bordering on fluff, but Molière plays the crucial role of the straight man in his own farce. There's no sombre reverence to Molière and his work, though the film hints at the genesis of his later plays through overtly familiar circumstances, making it a more fruitful experience for those intimate with his works.

This movie is a true delight for Moliere's fans.A good knowledge of his plays is useful but the screenplay is strong enough to grab someone who is not particularly interested in them.The story is essentially based on "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme" (aka "the middle class gentleman" ) and "Tartuffe" with elements borrowed from "Le Misanthrope" ,"Les Femmes Savantes" ,"L'Avare " and "Les Fourberies De Scapin" .Now the lines are directly taken from the writer ,now they are written in his style .Each character represents two or three other characters:the wonderful Fabrice Lucchini is Monsieur Jourdain and Orgon,Romain Duris is Molière and Tartuffe ,Laura Morante is Elmire and Madame Jourdain and the excellent Edouard Baer ,Dorante ,Alceste and some kind of "Grand Turc" .

Agatha Christie disappeared when her husband left her and as nobody knew what she did in those days they made a movie about it in the late seventies ("Agatha" ,Michael Apted).So why not Molière?In France ,some critics such as the reliable Claude Bouliq Mercier slagged off Tirard's movie ,proving that they can be prodigious snobs themselves sometimes;of course they spoke in the name of culture,of art ,of Molière -who -was one-more-time-betrayed ,they do not have any sense of humor.

Molière meeting his famous characters before writing his plays (after all they were inspired by the society he lived in) is pure fiction,and should not be taken too seriously:hence the failure with the French intellectual audience who praises to the skies any sequence of Woody Allen's films .I remember a teacher who could captivate his class with "Le Misanthrope" .He often made us laugh .I remembered him when I was watching"Molière" ,particularly the so-called "scene des Petits Marquis " updated by Celimène/Dorimène .Thank you,Mr Tirard.

NB :should not be mistaken for Ariane Mnouchkine's eponymous work (1978)