Would-Be Gentleman

Movie · 2h 10m

Starring Michel Serrault, Rosy Varte, Daniel Ceccaldi, Jean-Pierre Darras

Le Bourgeois gentilhomme satirizes attempts at social climbing and the bourgeois personality, poking fun both at the vulgar, pretentious middle-class and the vain, snobbish aristocracy. The title is meant as an oxymoron: in Molière's France, a "gentleman" was by definition nobly born, and thus there could be no such thing as a bourgeois gentleman.