DVD/150: JEAN DE FLORETTE and MANON DES SOURCES (Claude Berri, 1986)

In 1952 Marcel Pagnol wrote and directed MANON DES SOURCES but 40 minutes were cut so he rewrote it into two novels.  Claude Berri decided to turn it into two films.|

Ugolin Soubeyran returns from WWI to his Provence home planning to grow carnations; his stern uncle César, impressed by the first crop's return, suggests they expand by buying a neighbour's field.

The owner and César scuffle which results in the owner's death. An ex-villager Florette inherits the property but she dies, tranferring it to her tax collector son Jean.

The Soubeyrans are shocked when hunchback Jean arrives with wife Aimée and daughter Manon to grow vegetables and breed rabbits, totally self-taught.

Jean doesn't know his property includes a spring which could supply water but the Soubeyrans have blocked it, Jean's desparation for water leads to catastrophe.

The Soubeyrans unblock the spring watched by a hidden, crying Manon.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Years later in MANON DES SOURCES, Ugolin's carnations cover the land that Jean failed on.

Manon is now a teenage goatherd, running her flock over the hills above her former home.  The town's new teacher meets her and a mutual attraction develops.

César insists Ugolin marry to continue the Soubeyran name, César still regrets his one failed chance of marrying.  But Ugolin obsessively loves Manon, who he secretly follows in the hills.

But Manon is disgusted when he proposes as she knows he and César caused her father's failure.

She then overhears two locals talk of how the townsmen knew of the hidden spring but did nothing to help Jean rather than provoke Cesar's anger.

Manon discovers the hidden source of the town's water so, in revenge, blocks it.

When Manon confronts the town over it's collective guilt, Ugolin loses his reason and César discovers a devastating secret too late.

Shelf or charity shop? Both JEAN DE FLORETTE and MANON DES SOURCES reside in my plastic DVD storage case but they are both favourites of mine.  While some dislike Berri's 'classic French cinema' style I love losing myself in Pagnol's tale of deception, retribution and redemption.  Both films were filmed back-to-back and while Daniel Auteuil and Emmanuelle Béart were falling in love off-set, Yves Montand suffered through the death of his wife, actress Simone Signoret, mid-way through filming.  JEAN won four BAFTA awards including Best Film and Best Supporting Actor for Auteuil but at the French César Awards, Auteuil won Best Actor! Emmanuelle Béart won a César for Best Supporting Actress for MANON.  The four lead performances across both films are all excellent: Gerard Depardieu's tragic Jean, Montand's conniving César, Auteuil's gormless Ugolin and Béart's radiant Manon.  However Montand's scene towards the end when his life is pulled from under his feet is unforgettable.

DVD/150: SEARCHING FOR DEBRA WINGER (Rosanna Arquette, 2002)

Rosanna Arquette's documentary about actresses is a curious time capsule when seen 18 years on.

Arquette interviews 34 actresses about their lives as actresses and women; her starting point being THE RED SHOES which she saw when young and it's dancer heroine torn between her career or becoming a wife.

It culminates in her interviewing Debra Winger who in the mid-1990s stopped making films to raise her children.

The participants are Patricia Arquette, Emmanuelle Béart, Katrin Cartlidge (who died soon after), Laura Dern, Jane Fonda, Teri Garr, Whoopi Goldberg, Melanie Griffith, Daryl Hannah, Salma Hayek, Holly Hunter, Diane Lane, Kelly Lynch, Julianna Marguiles, Chiara Mastroianni, Samantha Mathis, Frances McDormand, Catherine O'Hara, Julia Ormond, Gwyneth Paltrow, Martha Plimpton, Charlotte Rampling, Vanessa Redgrave, Theresa Russell, Meg Ryan, Ally Sheedy, Adrienne Shelly, Hilary Shepard, Sharon Stone, Tracey Ullman, JoBeth Williams, Alfre Woodard and Robin Wright.

Laudable but it's flat tone is regrettable.

Shelf or charity shop?  The film certainly has it's highpoints - Jane Fonda's rapturous monologue on the magic of getting it right on a film set - are worth maybe keeping this in the DVD limbo of the plastic storage box but these are few amid the usual - and timeless - talk of no roles for older women and the pressures put on young actresses,  Bearing in mind Rosanna Arquette has said that Harvey Weinstein had her career ruined when she refused to have sex with him in the early 1990s - one wonders that if she made this film today would the result be more hard-hitting?