Watching: The Misanthrope

Overview

Célimène, a beautiful young widow, chooses to keep her many suitors hoping in order to preserve her freedom, even though she is drawn to one of them, Alceste. An idealist, Alceste refuses to play the social game; he seeks to persuade the young woman to abandon her strategy and give herself over to an exclusive love. Theater play "Le misanthrope" played by the "Comédie française" in 2000. Rather than a simple recording of a live theater performance, this version was explicitly structured as a television movie. It blended cinematic camera work with the theatrical script.