Summary: Under the pretext of holding an improvised rehearsal at Versailles, Moliere gathers his actors and attempts to explain his conception of drama while defining the poetics of a rigorous and innovative dramatic art-and in the process settles some accounts with the troupe of the Hotel de Bourgogne. This play, along with La Critique de L'Ecole des Femmes, served as Moliere's response to the severe...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Monsieur Jourdain, a wealthy tradesman, is sparing no expense to try to buy what he can never be: a born gentleman. As delightful as he is fatuous and as genuine as he is naive, M. Jourdain's attempts to transform himself through custom-tailored clothing and all manner of lessons are absurd to everyone-except himself. But when his pretensions lead him to refuse his daughter's hand to Cleante on...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: A vivid, compelling film dramatization of Hugo's great novel, which provides students with an excellent historical and social portrait of France-and particularly Paris-at mid-19th century, as well as an insightful treatment of one of the greatest of all novels, one which is part of the basic cultural vocabulary.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Surveying the uncompromising life and career of the erstwhile Amandine Aurore-Lucie Dupin, this program familiarizes viewers with her literary output, political beliefs, and the widely varied circles she inhabited. Beginning with her birth in Paris, the film describes Sand's semi-aristocratic upbringing, stifling marriage, turbulent romances, creative evolution, and visionary proto-feminist...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Hypochondriac Argan's household revolves around his obsession with his chronic imaginary illnesses. Served by a pair of unscrupulous doctors, Argan even goes so far as to try to marry off his daughter Angelique to one of their sons so he would have a physician in the family. But Angelique is in love with Cleante, and it takes all of the wiles of servant Toinette to bring about their marriage....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Sganarelle is a wealthy man of sixty-four who proposes to Dorimene, a flirtatious young woman in her teens. But as second thoughts assail him, he consults with his friend Geronimo, a couple of philosophers, and even a pair of fortune-tellers. Convinced that he will become the butt of marital infidelity, he struggles to break off the engagement-until Dorimene's brother gives him a sound beating,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Deftly blending the personal and the historical, this program is an illuminating and accessible introduction to the life and work of Marcel Proust, whose novel Remembrance of Things Past changed the face of literature. Interviews with writers Dame Iris Murdoch, Shelby Foote, and writer-critic Roger Shattuck highlight the magnitude of Proust's accomplishment, while dramatizations of key scenes...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Molière
Summary: "One of the most accomplished American poets of his generation, Richard Wilbur (1921-2017) was also a prolific translator of French and Russian literature. His verse translations of Molïre's plays are especially admired by readers and are still performed today in theaters around the world. Wilbur, the critic John Simon once wrote, makes Molïre into as great an English verse playwright as he was...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Library of America 2021
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Fiction, Call number: FIC MOLMolière
Summary: "One of the most accomplished American poets of his generation, Richard Wilbur (1921-2017) was also a prolific translator of French and Russian literature. His verse translations of Molïre's plays are especially admired by readers and are still performed today in theaters around the world. Wilbur, the critic John Simon once wrote, makes Molïre into as great an English verse playwright as he was...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Library of America 2021
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Fiction, Call number: FIC MOLSummary: My role as a writer is to create positive myths, says Amin Maalouf. The Lebanese-born novelist and journalist also acknowledges "the material that history gives me." This program features conversations with Maalouf about his imaginative, historically grounded novels and his identity as a Christian Arab living in Paris. On-screen readings by the author present excerpts and themes from Leo...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: A notorious lothario, Dom Juan is the despair of his longsuffering servant, Sganarelle. He carries on his many seductions without a care, deceiving and leaving woman after woman-including the noble Elvire, whose brothers promptly swear vengeance against him. After successfully eluding them, Dom Juan mockingly invites to dinner the statue of a man he had recently killed. When the statue's...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Fearful of falling victim to marital infidelity, bachelor Arnolphe schemes to marry his guileless young ward, Agnes, whom he has had raised in a convent specifically to be his model wife. However, his naive plan is spoiled when Agnes runs away with Horace-a fact that Arnolphe learns when Horace unwittingly asks him to conceal her at his home. Before Arnolphe can react, it is revealed that...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: A gripping story that explores the ambiguities between the supernatural and the natural, this dramatization portrays one man's descent into the "fantastic" and his ensuing madness.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: She was the sort of woman who spared neither herself nor others-and arguably qualifies as 20th-century France's greatest femme de lettres. In this interview, the late novelist and filmmaker talks openly about the hardship and the romance of her childhood in French Indochina, sharing how this period haunted her life and shaped her work. Excerpts from her films and readings from her books by...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: A consideration of the book and its importance, which reaches far beyond that of a children's fable, interwoven with dramatic readings from it and with details of the author's life and his search for spiritual meaning in flight.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: His incendiary poetry assaulted the constraints of European society, helped to define the Symbolist movement, and influenced generations of later writers-including many Surrealists, Beat poets, and even rockers like Jim Morrison. This program combines a stunning visual biography of Arthur Rimbaud with excerpts from key texts, forging a unique study of the poet's personality and examining his...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Pseudo-intellectualism is all the fashion, and Chrysale is a man under siege. Philaminte, his wife, is enthralled by the pedantic poet Trissotin and is determined to marry their youngest daughter, Henriette, to him in spite of her husband's opposition and Henriette's protests that she be allowed to marry the sensible Clitandre. In the end, Henriette is united with her beloved, but not before...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Gorgibus, a provincial bourgeois, moves to Paris in the hopes of marrying his daughter and niece to a pair of young men of good families. Unfortunately, Magdelon and Cathos, enamored of the affectations of Parisian society, reject their suitors for lacking the flamboyant manners they so adore. In retaliation, the suitors pass off their valets as highly fashionable noblemen, who succeed in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: The story of a woman who borrows her friend's necklace, only to lose it, this dramatization of Maupassant's cynical and caustic tale will delight students of all levels.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Hailed as one of the finest living poets writing in English, Derek Walcott grew up on an island where French, French patois, and Creole are also spoken. Filmed on St. Lucia, Walcott's birthplace and the wellspring of his poetic vision, this program presents the biography of a major figure in contemporary literature. The poet talks about his childhood and education, his influences and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Having lost all patience with the flattery and hypocrisy of fashionable society, Alceste has vowed to speak and act only with complete sincerity. Paradoxically, he falls in love with the epitome of all that he despises: the cruel coquette Celimene. Disgusted by his loss in a lawsuit in which justice was on his side, Alceste resolves to abandon society once and for all, and asks Celimene to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Here is a spectacular French production of Racine's great play that treats the classical past with respect while demonstrating its continued, living interest. If it was the playwright's goal to show people as they are-not as they ought to be-then this performance represents French classical drama at its most moving, with equal attention to the language itself, the lavishness of sets and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: When the religious charlatan Tartuffe insinuates himself into the household of the wealthy but credulous Orgon, it is not long before he takes over, acquiring the deed to the property, disinheriting Orgon's son, and becoming betrothed to Orgon's daughter. But when clever Elmire, Orgon's wife, trips up the imposter, Orgon throws him out-only to find himself arrested and his family evicted...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: The life of Victor Hugo, one of the giants of French literature, is a study in contrasts. This program chronicles how a man born into humble circumstances became a staunch monarchist and then a political liberal and supporter of the French republic. Though he lived many years in exile, Hugo was considered the conscience of the Republic, and his fame as a political force rivaled his renown as...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005