The Libertine

The Libertine

Le libertin
🎞️ Movie 100 min FR
โ˜… 6.2 /10 2000

The 'philosopher' (modernist intellectual of the French 18th-century Enlightenment) Denis Diderot is part of an aristocratic circle which practices the libertarian principles on the rural castle estate of the baron of Holbach, and prints their forbidden publication, the Encyclopédie, drowning the noise of the presses in Jewish assistant Abraham's organ playing. Then arrives Madame Therbouche, a flirtatious painter, from the Prussian metropolis Berlin, and convinces Diderot to pose for her more daring then his idol fellow-philosopher Voltaire in Berlin: in the nude, leading to an animated row with his wife Antoinette, still naked except for a very unsteady sheet, all over the estate's park. Worse, the saucy scene is witnessed by a feared visitor, Holbach's brother the Cardinal, who is hunting for the illegal Encyclopaedia printers; to divert him, the baroness confesses her real and imagined sins since years and next sends in every female to do the same, later joined spontaneously by chevalier (marquis in the end credits) de Jerfeuil, who got a livelier show the he bargained for when accepting to be shown two inseparable marquis's 'sabre collection' which proves not of the military variety. The baroness also treats her guests to (then) most exotic foods and naughty pictures, yet even for her the freedman Turkish hamam eunuch Mohamed takes hospitality for female guests too far into intimate massage to their taste. His personal experience keeps changing Diderot's ideas, and therefore the article he is writing on 'morale' (morality). Secrets end up getting out, both the portraitist's true agenda and what goes on in the chapel, which the Cardinal finally gets into to 'recollect himself' after hearing so many unsettling lustful sins...

Cast

Vincent Perez
Vincent Perez
Denis Diderot
Fanny Ardant
Fanny Ardant
Madame Therbouche
Josiane Balasko
Josiane Balasko
La Baronne d'Holbach
Michel Serrault
Michel Serrault
Le Cardinal
Arielle Dombasle
Arielle Dombasle
La Marquise de Jerfeuil
Christian Charmetant
Christian Charmetant
Le Marquis (Chevalier) de Jerfeuil
๐Ÿ‘ค
Françoise Lépine
Madame Diderot
๐Ÿ‘ค
François Lalande
Le Baron d'Holbach
Bruno Todeschini
Bruno Todeschini
Le Marquis de Cambrol
๐Ÿ‘ค
Arnaud Lemaire
Le Marquis de Lutz
Bruno Coulais
Bruno Coulais
Composer
๐Ÿ‘ค
Jean-Marie Dreujou
Cinematographer

๐ŸŽฌ Videos

Le Libertin Trailer
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Trailer
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