A Hollow French Confection

By Gerald Clarke

Moliere, 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 Moliere. It is, unfortunately, a disappointment, a beautiful but boring fete brillante.

As the TV story tells it, taking an occasional liberty with the facts, Moliere 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 Orleans 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 Moliere and fell in with a theatrical family, the Bejarts. With his mistress, Madeleine Bejart, he formed a company that toured the provinces for the next 15 years.

It was out there that Moliere (Philippe Caubere) 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, Moliere 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, Moliere was as unhappy with his own life as he was with the life he saw around him. He rejected the aging Madeleine (Josephine 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 Moliere 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 Moliere, however, is Moliere. Caubere 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.

Many are gorgeous, and Moliere succeeds as spectacle if not as drama. There is a wonderful celebration in the royal gardens, with fireworks and dancing fountains. Throughout there is a keen sense of place, of dirt next to grandeur, the greasy, lice-infested hair underneath those magnificent 17th century wigs. But Mnouchkine the writer has failed Mnouchkine the director. Without the mind to engage it, the eye inevitably wanders. She has provided a rich and enticing dessert but neglected the main course.

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