Le Tartuffe Film Adaptation Review

Gerard Depardieu’s adaptation of Moliere’s Tartuffe takes the play in a more overly dramatic direction rather than a comedic one. Depardieu focuses and elaborates more on the dramatic moments and almost discards the comedic moments. The style in which he directs the movie is overly dramatic instead of realistic. The acting is highly overdramatic at moments which cause the audience to not believe the characters and situations. For instance, most of Orgon’s speeches and monologues are delivered staring straight out to the audience or facing the opposite direction of the person he is supposed to be communicating with. It does not seem as though Orgon is communicating his ideas properly because he rarely looks and connects with the person he is talking to. Some of the other characters do this at various moments as well which immediately disengage the audience’s suspension of disbelief that is needed for a play to be successful. It could have been Depardieu’s intention of directing the film so overdramatically to demonstrate the idea of the French view that life was theatre. Even so, it was so exaggerated that at moments I was completely taken out of the story because the acting was so unbelievable.


The movie was artistically interesting in terms of music and set. The very long beginning credits are beautifully juxtaposed with the beautiful, instrumental music. It sets the tone for the whole movie that the movie would be ultimately happy by the ending. It also gives clues as to the social and political status of the family that would soon be introduced. It is a light, happy song with many violins and trumpets which signals that the family would be upper-class and rich. The set is extremely minimalistic which I feel is slightly contradictory to the situation. The set is Orgon’s house; it takes place in the main living room, hallways, rooms, and private rooms. The family is supposed to be rich but Depardieu did not place any pictures, paintings, or decorations on any of the walls; the walls were white and bare. The whole house is white except the stairs and doorways are black. The lack of colors and lack of decorations make the house feel barren as if the family could not afford lavish items. I found that set works because of the style in which Depardieu chose to direct the movie. In any other approach to the text, I do not think the set would have been plausible.

Depardieu’s interpretation of Moliere’s text is interesting because he takes many artistic liberties. He keeps the original text of the play, but interprets the actions that correlate with the text in a much different way than what Moliere has written. In the play on page twenty-two, there is an elaborate footnote which describes the actions that should take place between Dorine and Orgon. He is so frustrated that she keeps interrupting him when he is telling his daughter that she will marry Tartuffe that he is supposed to almost hit her. She is supposed to be making gestures behind his back to tell Mariane that she should not listen to her father and he is supposed to slowly catch her in the process. The actions would have been a very comedic moment, as the playwright intended, but instead, Depardieu directed the scene dramatically and the element of her mocking him is not seen in the movie.

Another example of Depardieu’s interesting interpretation of Moliere’s text is the scene in which Valere comes to Mariane and asks her about her planned marriage to Tartuffe. In the stage directions for that scene, it is only written that Valere and Mariane are moving around a lot to avoid confrontation. For example, it says that Valere toys with the idea of leaving and then leaves and comes back multiple times. Directing the scene that way would show how the two lovers are avoiding the confrontation of admitting what will occur in the days to come; she will be married off to Tartuffe even though they both love each other. Instead, Depardieu interprets the text with liberties and creates a huge physical and emotion fight between the two. He interprets Valere as rather violent and has him forcefully grab and hold Mariane’s wrists. Once again, the scene has a fully dramatic connotation with no elements of comedy.

The scene in which Orgon tells his daughter that he has picked Tartuffe to marry her instead of Valere was beautiful in its artistic direction. Depardieu interprets this scene in a way that the audience can emphasize with Mariane. The scene opens with beautiful opera music which sets the tone of the scene and emphasizes Orgon’s power as head of the household. Orgon is not really affected by the music but the audience can tell that he is breathing in the music. As Mariane enters the room, Orgon does not really look at her at all during the scene. He kneels down to the ground, which is supposed to symbolize how “pious” he has become, and proceeds to tell her what he has decided. She joins him kneeling on the ground and has to listen to the news. Depardieu juxtaposes the two characters to emphasize the impact of the situation; Orgon is facing out speaking to his daughter with no emotions and Mariane is emotional in her reaction and touches her father to try to plead with him about the situation. Depardieu’s directing in this scene makes the audience side with Mariane because Orgon is not being emotional about the fact that he is giving his daughter away to a man that she does not love.

There are subtle things that Depardieu adds throughout the film that help the audience understand the situations because it is a film. If the play were performed as a play, the audience sees all the characters on stage together but since it is a film, the audience cannot see the reactions of other characters in the room at the same time as other people are in a scene. The best example is when Dorine and Orgon are discussing, or rather arguing, Orgon’s hasty decision to wed his daughter to Tartuffe, whom she does not love. As the two are arguing, if it were a play, the audience would be able to look at both Mariane’s reactions and the two arguing. Instead, since the audience cannot see both at the same time in a film, Depardieu pans the camera over to Mariane to show her distress and the argument can be heard in the background. This technique is very useful in adapting a play to a film because the audience needs to see and understand Mariane’s reaction to the situation as they are arguing. She remains lifeless with no expression on her face because she is unable to fathom the situation that has been introduced to her.

Overall, I thought that Depardieu’s style of directing the play is interesting and turns the play into a heavy drama rather than a drama with comedic elements. His choices regarding music, set, costumes, and props emphasizes his dramatic direction to the play and would not have worked unless under this particular style of directing it. I imagined the play a lot differently as I was reading it because of my own interpretation of the text and stage directions. Depardieu takes many artistic liberties in order to emphasize the drama in the situation, which definitely came across to the audience. I did not necessarily agree with all of his choices that he made in directing the play for film but I did appreciate his unique way of interpreting Moliere’s text and enjoyed watching his ideas executed on screen.