BEAUMARCHAIS, THE SCOUNDREL By Harvey Karten, Ph.D. New Yorker Films/Telema/Le Studio Canal + Director: Edouard Molinaro Writer: Edouard Molinaro, Jean-Claude Brisville Cast: Fabrice Luchini, Michel Piccoli, Michel Serrault, Manuel Blanc, Sandrine Kiberlain Quick! What human being comes to mind when you think of "The Marriage of Figaro"? Mozart, but of course. If you're an opera buff your next name might be Lorenzo da Ponte, who wrote the libretto. People who love the theater will join those who esteem opera in mentioning Pierre de Beaumarchais, from whose play the story of "Figaro" is taken. While Mozart's music provides the sensitivity of workmanship and the common touch which makes "The Marriage of Figaro" one of the three most popular operas--along with "Carmen" and "Aida"--Beaumarchais' wit gives it the edge. That great French writer, who lived from 1732-1799, was both hated by members of the aristocracy whose positions he challenged with his quill pen, and loved by the very same class, which applauded his plays despite the criticisms that hit them from the stage. Beaumarchais would scarcely be a fitting subject for a biopic were he simply the man who coined such democratic ideas as "You went to some trouble to be born, and that's all," his principal barb against the aristocracy. Even modern American upstarts would recognize themselves in lines like "If you are mediocre and you grovel, you shall succeed." But the writer was no effete intellectual who buried himself in his room composing ideas about a world he did not personally experience. Beaumarchais is a fitting subject for a movie because he was a notorious womanizer, a swordsman, a gun- runner for the American side in the War for Independence, an envoy sent to England by to steal battle plans for France's ancient enemy. While he repeatedly lashed out at the corruption of the French court, he was by reputation an unscrupulous businessman. The movie is based on an unproduced and unpublished play by Sacha Guitry who used the title character to vent his anger against the French authorities who, after World War II had him arrested and charged with collaboration. Despite the considerable expense that went into this costume drama, it seems strangely disconnected, a product of choppy editing which transforms the story into a the very flaw which burdens Guitry's play: a series of historical vignettes rather than an effectively linked narrative of romantic and political intrigue. While there is no mandate that director Edouard Molinaro trace Beaumarchais' passage to England to meet with a transvestite spy, we get no sense that a voyage was made at all. First the writer is here, then he's there, as though he simply moved from one room in a mansion to another. While the author's life has been theatricalized for legitimate dramatic purpose, it comes across as generally unsurprising and stilted. Some of the fault lies with the principal performer, Fabrice Luchini, who seems scarcely like the charismatic sort of person that would bring the ladies to swoon. Another weakness is the translation, which does not communicate what may to a French audience be a film brimming with wit, levity, and charm. "Beaumarchais, the Scoundrel" shows the man to be almost simultaneously a judge and a defendant, first handing down a decision favoring an ordinary person, then charged and judged guilty of denouncing the Court of Lords whose hypocrisy and privileges he disparages. He meets and marries the freckled and admiring Marie-Therese (Sandrine Kiberlain)--though she suspects he had something to do with the sudden death of his previous two wives--and is sent to England to retrieve an attack plan. Thrown into a British jail after the death of his protector, French King Louis XV, he is released, arranges for the shipment of guns to the American colonists fighting the English, and, penniless because the American government cannot pay him, he returns in triumph to playwriting. For an idea of what this movie could have become, you need only rent the video of "Amadeus"--a lavish, effectively put together, and highly stylized rendition of the life of the great composer. In directing "Beaumarchais," Molinaro puts so many details into a brief 100 minutes that he skips from one predictable event to another, and fails to give such legendary French actors as Michel Piccoli and Michel Serrault room to strut their stuff. Not Rated. Running Time 100 minutes. (C) 1997 Harvey Karten
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