Arts & Culture

La Comédie Française or Love´s labors acted

The quintessence of a certain French cultural tradition, the Comédie-Française is one of the oldest and most significant theatrical institutions in the world. For the first time, a camera has been allowed to penetrate the everyday work environment of its actors, technicians and administration. And this camera belongs to the great American documentary maker Frederick Wiseman, who, in almost thirty years, has produced an exceptional body of work of around thirty feature-length films. Wiseman applies his usual work method here - no interviews and no commentary, shooting with a reduced-size team who ´hang around´, to use the cineaste´s own expression. The film is more than a report, more than a dossier, and more than an investigation & over the weeks and months of filming, the work of observation becomes discourse. The Comédie-Française & over three hundred years of history, with Molière as a Commander, a complex technical and social organization, with its explicit and implicit hierarchies, its taboos, clans and unvoiced comments. A place of memory which must also be one of discovery. An almost inextricable mix of democracy, fiercely-protected privileges, traditions and modernity. In this fragile world, the tortured souls of actors, guild craftsmen with unrivalled experience and difficult-to-manage staff live together. In this seemingly impenetrable world, the merest wind of the social and political currents of the outside world does blow. In truth, it resembles at once an administrative office, a betting shop, a museum, a zoo, a monastery and a specialized hospital. La Comédie-Française or Love´s labors acted is also a human drama. And of course, a metaphor for French society as a whole. We have known for some time that ´all the world´s a stage´. With an ironic yet friendly smile, Frederick Wiseman shows this to be true to this day.