Television: A Hollow French Confection

Moliére, PBS, five parts starting Jan. 9

It is no secret that when it comes to turning history into television, the British are better than the Americans. Now it is clear that they are better than the French as well. American viewers have a rare opportunity to see a major French production, a five-part dramatization of the life of Moliére. It is, unfortunately, a disappointment, a beautiful but boring fête brillante.

As the TV story tells it, taking an occasional liberty with the facts, Moliére was born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin. His father was a master upholsterer and a minor functionary of the court, whose duty it was to prepare the king's bed three months of the year. He intended that his son would turn down the royal sheets after he had gone, but the young man decided to become a lawyer and went to Orléans for training. He eventually concluded that all lawyers are frauds and decided to become a legitimate fraud, which is to say an actor. He changed Poquelin to Moliére and fell in with a theatrical family, the Béjarts. With his mistress, Madeleine Béjart, he formed a company that toured the provinces for the next 15 years.

It was out there that Moliére (Philippe Caubère) learned his craft and began writing the first of his farces, which were to make him France's greatest comic playwright. His troupe returned to Paris and gained the patronage of the young Louis XIV, who was then a mere sparkler compared with the great Sun King he was to become. Like all satirists, Moliére wrote from anger and disappointment, however, and his sharp attacks on the reigning conventions infuriated the clergy and its conservative supporters. Even Louis had to bow to the pressure, and Tartuffe, perhaps the most pointed of his comedies, was banned from public performances for a few years.

According to this biography, Moliére was as unhappy with his own life as he was with the life he saw around him. He rejected the aging Madeleine (Joséphine Derenne) and married her coquettish younger sister Armande (Brigitte Catillon), 20 years his junior. Armande, in turn, made him a cuckold and a figure of ridicule for his enemies. The king withdrew much of his support, and toward the end of his life Moliére felt that his talent had dried up. He contracted tuberculosis, and one night, after playing the lead in his last play, The Imaginary Invalid, he collapsed and died at age 51.

That outline should indicate what fine television this might have been. What is lacking in Moliére, however, is Moliére. Caubère has done his best, but Ariane Mnouchkine, who both wrote and directed the series, has given neither him nor the viewer anything very solid. The star is the camera, and Mnouchkine has indulged its every whim. Most shots are held too long, and the only explanation behind some scenes has to be that they are very pretty.