Admirers of Molière will love this movie. Those interested in a young, virile seducer with little substance should instead see Heath Ledger in 'Casanova.'
Director Jacques Weber's decision to cast actor Jacques Weber as the great seducer is a bit unsettling, but having a leading man with a soft belly and gray hair was a problem quite familiar to M. Molière. The story, as Molière tells it, is not at all about sex, and only superficially about seduction. The subject is hypocrisy, as explained by Don Juan in a speech that starts "Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice..." which begins the last act.
Up to that point, the dramatic tension has been focused on the question of whether Don Juan is capable of the self reform to which he is repeatedly urged by his spurned lover Doña Elvira and by his virtuous but pliable servant Sganarelle. By the time Don Juan has finished his lengthy depiction of the advantages of hypocrisy, it is clear that he has not the slightest intention of amending his life in any way. There is nothing left for him but to keep his appointment with the fatal statue.
At this point, if you have been in sympathy with the story Molière/Weber have been telling, you may feel as I did, that M. Weber is much better equipped to portray the flinty perversity of a life long lived with utter disdain for the consequences of his actions than a younger actor could have been (though I suspect Robert Downey, Jr, might be up to it).
Director Jacques Weber's decision to cast actor Jacques Weber as the great seducer is a bit unsettling, but having a leading man with a soft belly and gray hair was a problem quite familiar to M. Molière. The story, as Molière tells it, is not at all about sex, and only superficially about seduction. The subject is hypocrisy, as explained by Don Juan in a speech that starts "Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice..." which begins the last act.
Up to that point, the dramatic tension has been focused on the question of whether Don Juan is capable of the self reform to which he is repeatedly urged by his spurned lover Doña Elvira and by his virtuous but pliable servant Sganarelle. By the time Don Juan has finished his lengthy depiction of the advantages of hypocrisy, it is clear that he has not the slightest intention of amending his life in any way. There is nothing left for him but to keep his appointment with the fatal statue.
At this point, if you have been in sympathy with the story Molière/Weber have been telling, you may feel as I did, that M. Weber is much better equipped to portray the flinty perversity of a life long lived with utter disdain for the consequences of his actions than a younger actor could have been (though I suspect Robert Downey, Jr, might be up to it).