Moliere

Moliere is a film that is set in 17th century France which shows what happened to Jean-Baptiste Poquelin during the several weeks where he mysteriously disappeared. The movie somewhat adopted some of Jean-Baptiste’s works including the famous “Tartuffe”. The movie gave me a vivid representation on how it is to live in 17th century France although I believe that the 2-hour film was not sufficient enough for me to know and appreciate the true beauty and the elegance of the Age of Reason. The Italian Renaissance period had a huge influence in France until King Louis XIV came into power after Louis XIII’s death and The 17th century France had a transition from Renaissance to Classicism. This was known as The Golden Age of French literature and it flourished under King Louis XIV who had interests in the theatre and in landscape gardening. This age gave absolute priority to the power of reason and the observance to aesthetic rules.
The Golden Ager of French Literature is considered to be one of France’s most important periods in history. The common themes of emotionalism, skepticism, individualism and enthusiasm, which are inert in men, were transformed into orthodoxy, rationalism, refinement, conformity, etiquette and order. The Rationalism of Rene Descartes had a big impact during the 17th century. The reinforcement of royal authority and Catholic influences was significant before the latter part of the century. The rise of Classicism also changed on how dramatists were supposed to write. Dramatists carefully observed and emphasized the famous principle of the three unties which were the unity of time, place and action on their works which, according to which a play must present a single coherent story taking place within one day in ...

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...rriages were used in order for them to have a dynastic advantage and it can be seen in the 17th century where some of the members of the royal family were married to their cousins for purposes of power and dynastic advantages. Jourdain’s friendship with Dorante also showed that people in 17th century France made friends with people who have power in order for them to have an advantage. It was also shown in the movie that Molière wanted to be better than those who inspired them and even if he was only writing satires to entertain people, he still found a unique style of sending a meaningful messages about life.
Even if the movie length of the movie is only 2 hours, it was sufficient enough for me to see how people back then were living, on how they dressed and how they communicated with each other. It was shown that how people dressed represented their social status.