Beaumarchais

Shown: 20 October 1997

France 1996 (subtitles)
Directed by Edouard Molinaro
Leading players - Fabrice Luchini, Michel Serrault & Michel Piccoli

Synopsis

This is the rumbustious story of the 18th century French playwright, Beaumarchais, who also invented harp pedals and clock mechanisms and involved himself in the Amerian Revolution, on the rebels' side of course!

The story begins in 1770 Paris when a young man comes to Beaumarchais's theatre with a letter of introduction and is taken on by Beaumarchais as his assistant. Beaumarchais has fallen foul of the local authorities because of his political views and his incessant womanising! He is brought to trial but manages to talk his way out of trouble and buys himself a position as secretary to the King, Louis XV. Eventually the King has had enough and decides to send him to England to steal documents from a transvestite nobleman. There Beaumarchais becomes involved with Benjamin Franklin and runs guns for the American colonists. When things get too hot for him he returns to France and his neglected wife and promptly writes his most famous play "The Marriage of Figaro".

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Beaumarchais is brilliantly portrayed by Fabrice Luchini, who captures the character's ingenuity and rogueish aspects and makes him a loveable scoundrel. Luchini is ably supported by Michel Piccoli as the Prince de Conti, Michel Serrault as Louis XV, and Sandrine Kiberlain as Beaumarchais's wife.

The director, Edouard Molinaro, who also gave us the hilarious comedy "La Cage aux Folles", has created a witty and stylish film, packed with incident and funny moments, a far cry from the deeply serious and ponderous historical costume drama one might have expected.

Molinaro has been quoted as saying that he was seduced on first reading the unpublished play by Sacha Guitry by the "unbelievable modernity of the character: his talent for business, his role as an inventor, his uncanny skills as a machiavellic politician, and as a staunch defender of human rights, his boundless energy, endless wit, his sensitivity as a lover and father, and his immortal genius as a writer", and indeed the character positively leaps out of the screen at the audience.