General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

L'Avare

L'Avare is a 1980 French comedy film directed by Jean Girault and Louis de Funès, adapted from Molière's 1668 comedy L'Avare (The Miser), with de Funès starring as the miser Harpagon¹. It was de Funès's project as much as Girault's: he co-directed, co-wrote the screenplay, and, by his own account, considered Harpagon the role of his life². The film keeps Molière's text largely intact and transfers the play's seventeenth-century world to the screen with real locations, painted title-card drawings by Albert Uderzo, and a score by Jean Bizet³.

Key fact	Detail
Directors	Jean Girault (1924–1982) and Louis de Funès (1914–1983)¹
Source	Molière's comedy L'Avare (1622–1673)¹
Release	France, 5 March 1980; CNC visa no. 51455 dated 27 February 1980⁴^•⁵
Runtime and rating	123 min per the CNC visa record; classified Tous publics⁵
Lead role	Louis de Funès as Harpagon⁶
Key crew	Cinematography Edmond Richard; music Jean Bizet; scenario Jean Girault and Jean Halain; drawings Albert Uderzo³
Production	Films Christian Fechner; France and Italy³

Spoilers

Plot

The film follows Molière's plot closely. Harpagon, a wealthy and suspicious bourgeois, is fixated on a chest of gold coins (his cassette)⁷. His daughter Élise loves Valère, a gentleman who has entered the household as her father's steward to be near her, while his son Cléante loves Marianne, a young woman without fortune whom Harpagon intends to marry himself⁶. To keep his money entire, Harpagon agrees to marry his son to a destitute bride and his daughter to his own steward, and plans to wed Élise to the seigneur Anselme, who will take her without a dowry⁶.

Production and style

De Funès had long wanted to play Harpagon, and the film was built around that ambition: he shares the direction credit with Jean Girault, a frequent collaborator, and the scenario is credited to Girault and Jean Halain from Molière's text²^•³. Edmond Richard photographed the film in color, and the production, mounted by Films Christian Fechner with Bernard Artigues as delegate producer, was a French-Italian co-production³.

The result is often described as filmed theater. The opening shows the text of the play's first lines in close-up, and one set uses covers of editions of L'Avare as its walls, a device that signals the film's fidelity to its source⁸. Reviewers have noted both the strength of this approach, which preserves Molière's dialogue and gives close-ups a theatrical expressiveness, and its limits, since the staging can feel static and the period diction hard to follow at speed⁹.

Cast

Louis de Funès plays Harpagon. Around him, the cast draws on his regular company of comic character actors: Michel Galabru as Maître Jacques, Claude Gensac as Frosine, Bernard Ménez as La Flèche, Henri Génès as the commissaire, Guy Grosso as Brindavoine, Michel Modo as La Merluche, Georges Audoubert as Anselme, Micheline Bourday as Dame Claude, Madeleine Barbulée as Marianne's mother, Anne Caudry as Marianne, Claire Dupray as Élise, Hervé Bellon as Valère, and Franck Cabot-David as Cléante⁶^•².

Reception

The film reached French cinemas on 5 March 1980⁴. Its critical reception was sharply divided, more so than for any other de Funès film: part of the press was full of praise while another part attacked the film and its star co-director violently¹⁰. The press coverage was extensive, with full-page articles in Les Nouvelles littéraires, Jours de France, Le Quotidien de Paris, and France-Soir, and de Funès photographed as Harpagon beside Molière's bust on the cover of L'Express¹⁰.

The film is credited with influencing the Académie des arts et techniques du cinéma's decision to award de Funès an honorary César (César d'honneur) for his career at the 5th César ceremony on 2 February 1980, shortly before the release¹⁰. Audience ratings have remained moderate: AlloCiné records an average of 3.5 out of 5 from more than 12,000 votes, and JustWatch lists 60 percent¹¹^•⁶.

Place among adaptations of Molière

The 1980 film is one of several screen versions of L'Avare. Georges Méliès made a short silent L'Avare in 1908, of which only a five-minute fragment survives¹². A 1974 French television production directed by René Lucot, running 150 minutes, starred Michel Aumont, Françoise Seigner, and Isabelle Adjani¹³. A 2007 adaptation cast Michel Serrault as Harpagon¹⁴, and the Comédie-Française stage production directed by Lilo Baur, with Alain Lenglet, Françoise Gillard, and Laurent Stocker, was filmed and released in September 2023¹⁵. The de Funès version remains the most widely circulated of these in home video and streaming catalogs, distributed by StudioCanal and available for rental or purchase on French platforms¹⁶^•⁶.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Adaptations of literature, stage, and other media › Films based on stage plays

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

Notice something wrong?