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Manon des sources (1952)
The Film Needs to be Restored
Manon des Sources (1952)
Marcel Pagnol (1895 - 1974) was born in Aubagne which is commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southern France. His father was a school teacher. Pagnol studied literature at the University in Aix-en-Provence, was called into the French army during World War I. He was given a medical discharge and returned to school where he became an English teacher. In 1927 he began to devote his efforts to becoming a playwriter. Uninterested in silent films, he was impressed by viewing an early talky which lead him to contact Paramount Pictures in London about making his play Marius into a film. In 1957 Pagnol wrote two novels about his early life in Provvence...La Gloire de mon père (My Father's Glory) and Le château de ma mère (My Mother's Castle). Both were adapted for the screen by Yves Robert and Jerôme Tonnerre. Both films, directed by Yves Robert, were released in 1990.
In a 1/21/2017 article LA Times film critic Kenneth Turan reviewed the recent 4k restoration of Marcel Pagnol's Fanny trilogy (Marius, Fanny & Cesar) originally released between 1931 and 1936. Pagnol wrote the three screen plays and directed Cesar, his first directorial effort. Turan points out that "Once upon a time Pagnol was France's most celebrated filmmaker, the first of his craft to be selected to the lofty Academie Francaise. His best-known works from the 1930s, the warm and richly emotional trilogy ... were once required viewing for cinephiles worldwide." Pagnol formed his own studio Compagnie Méditérranéenne de Films in Marseilles and produced an additional 17 films from 1934 - 54. Outside of France, where his films are still popular, he is best known for films made from his stories by other film makers.
The successor to Compagnie Méditérranéenne de Films, CMF-MPC released many of Pagnol's films initially on VHS and now on DVD with English titles. While they are not distributed in North America they can be imported from France. This 2-part film from 1952 is the most obscure Pagnol film. Apparently unsuccessful at its original release, its commercial failure lead to Pagnol's withdrawal from film making following his Les lettres de mon moulin (Letters from My Windmill) in 1954. However, the characters and plot of the 1952 film were incorporated into Pagnol's novel "L'eau des collines" which in turn was adapted by Claude Berri and Gerard Brach into the screen plays for Berri's 1986 films Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring. These highly regarded Berri films went on receive many awards and became two of the most successful French film productions.
Is the 1952 Manon des Sources worth your viewing. Definitely yes in my opinion. You may be put off by the black and white cinematography and the slow pace of story exposition but there are many rewards here. The lack of color may have been one of the reasons for this film's initial failure. Claude Berri's 1986 versions are visually stunning, but Pagnol's earlier film gets us more deeply into the world of the 162 citizens of Les Bastides.
The major differences between the 1952 and 1986 films are:
1. Jean de Florette, portrayed by Gerard Depardieu in the 1986 film does not appear in the 1952 film although he is referred to by many as "the hunchback."
2. Manon, who is Jean's daughter, does not appear as an adult in Jean de Florette. She is played by Emmanuelle Beart as a young woman in Manon.
3. Jacqueline Pagnol, Marcel Pagnol's second wife, plays the part of Manon as an adult in the 1953 film.
4. L'instituteur (The school teacher) has a much larger role in the earlier film and he is played by a more mature looking actor Raymond Pellegrin, although he was in fact younger than Hippolyte Girardot, who just looks young to be a school teacher (1986).
5. The lawyer, Monsieur Belloiseau, also has a much larger part in the earlier film where he is the subject of a running joke because he is hard of hearing.
6. There is an extended scene in the 1952 film where Manon is brought before a village tribunal and accused of being a witch. She is defended by the school teacher who becomes her friend and confidant.
7. Yves Montand stars as Cesar Soubeyran or "Le Papet" in the 1986 films. He is Ugolin's uncle and is the major conspirator in depriving Jean de Florette of the water needed to develop and farm his land. The role of "le Papet" in the earlier film is secondary to the plot against Jean and Ugolin is the one who blocks the stream.
The following passages from a 1988 New York Times article by Steven Harvey go a long way toward explaining why the 1952 more than deserves to be restored and re-issued: "Marcel Pagnol may be France's most paradoxical film maker - a deliberately parochial man of letters whose primal fables found a receptive public the world over, a dramatist who first used the screen to preserve the integrity of his texts and soon refashioned the medium into a new blend of theatricality and realism... Part of Pagnol's magic is to be found in the rigor of his film-making method and his faith that the audience would have the patience to reap its rewards. Most of his movies run well beyond standard length and are deliberately languid in pace, keyed to the long passages of contrapuntal dialogue in their author's uniquely savory voice."
9*