Manon des sources (1952) User Reviews

The original is great, so is the remake

[croteau · 9/10 · 21 September 2000]

The original version of Manon des Sources directed by Marcel Pagnol tells the story of Manon, a girl living in the mountains, who decides to block the spring supplying the water to the village. Manon wants to have revenge on the inhabitants of the village that ignored her father when he was killing himself to find precious water for his own land.

This story sounds familiar to some people as being the second part of Claude Berri's 1986 remake. Not only the story is different, but the style of the original movie is too. Pagnol uses a very less dramatic way to tell that poignant story although some scenes are, like Manon confronting Ugolin and the villagers after the sermon. As in other Pagnol movies, the funny dialogs make the movie. The story of the hunchback told by Monsieur Belloiseau and the trial of Manon are elements that are absent in the remake and that are delightful here. These and the priest sermon are exceptionally entertaining. That contrast in style is certainly a reason why the remake did an excellent job compared to most.

The acting here is of superior level and especially Rellys as Ugolin. The cast of the remake had to be top-notch and again it was. The cinematography is beautiful with light effects that recreate the warmth of Provence. Again, the remake had it too by adding color.

The remake had the ingenuity of depicting the story of Jean de Florette in images and involving Le Papet much more in the story. I don't know which story is the most faithful to Pagnol's novel though.

The Pagnol movie may not be as entertaining to non-French speakers because the dialogs have a higher importance than in Berri's. I doubt that subtitles could render the feeling and I'm convinced that dubbing wouldn't. Nevertheless, it's surely a feast for the ears of a French speaker.

Still, Pagnol's Manon des Sources is amazing and Berri's remake had the intelligence to be different. It also had the approach to catch an international audience. If you liked the remake, give the original a try.

La Gloire De Marcel.

[dbdumonteil · 10/10 · 6 August 2018]

"Manon Des Sources " matched Pagnol 's great works and was arguably his best since " La Fille Du Puisatier" (1941);it's also his legacy for "Carnaval" ,a collaboration with Henri Verneuil ,was a disaster ,and "Les lettres De Mon Moulin ",was too uneven a work.A legacy ,it certainly is,but a mammoth work ,a 3h 45 movie ,and never a dull moment ;it flows along ,a source which never dries up (sic).

Now overshadowed by Claude Berri 's work in two parts,which is and is not a remake ,I won't add much to all that has been written on the site by both precedent users;I just want to point out that in the 1952 opus, the central character is the schoolteacher who plays a prominent part in the work (on the poster you can see his face;not on Berri's one.Now I'll stick with the black and white gem,perhaps my Pagnol favorite ,along with "Merlusse " and "La Fille Du Puisatier"

This schoolteacher is masterfully played by Raymond Pellegrin who found here his lifetime part ;I have always thought that he was the director's spokesman;after all, Pagnol's dad was a shoolteacher(remember the beautiful "La Gloire De Mon Père " and " Le Château De Ma Mère ",transferred to the screen by Yves Robert ) and he was an English teacher before writing and directing;it's not surprising that it's him who indirectly works the final "miracle" . "Manon " is originally a work in two parts;it was to last five ,nay six hours ,but the producers did not want to hear of it : both parts were released at the same time (like ,for instance, "Les Enfants Du Paradis") and the audience had to pay twice of course .

It might well be the longest French movie at the time but the four hours never seem to drag by .It might be this work which made Pagnol one of the new wavelet 's favorites ;it might seem obsolete,it's actually very modern :the scenes are very long ,they seem to have been filmed in real time ;if Pagnol's lines were not so witty and so florid,some of them would look like impromptu performances:

-the long scenes with Monsieur Belloiseau (Robert Vattier whose hilarious performance of a deaf and talkative clerk is unforgettable;often compared to Professeur Tournesol (Calculus));choosing a deaf man to deliver a speech is sheer genius ,and it adds a lot to the final scene which ends part one when everybody is panic-stricken .His long tale which begins the story in which he tells the hunchback's terrible fate (he's referred to "Jean De Florette"only at the end of part 2) could have been a stodgy melodrama; the "game" his audience plays wins us over : it shows that,like all the genuine artists,Pagnol never forgives his sense of humor .

-The speech the vicar delivers in an overcrowded church lasts ten minutes (you read well) and will remind Pagnol's fans of his short "Le Curé De Cucugnan"; although anticlerical to a fault ,the director does the priest justice :"your prayers are for your tomatoes" ;science ,represented by the schoolteacher ,and later by the engineer -whose geological explanations in front of a clueless village council are worth the price of admission,too :then again ,it could be the bore to end all bores :it's simply great!-,is as helpless as religion when it comes to get water back.And sometimes the viewer stops and wonders : perhaps the old country woman's curse -in Provençal Patois - is stronger than faith and reason (too bad that the wonderful Marcelle Géniat should be absent in the second part).

Water (although the movie does not deal with this problem ,"La Fille Du Puisatier" is "the well-digger's daughter all the same)and land (see "Joffroi" and "Regain" )are recurrent themes in the director's work ;so is the outcast : the unwed mother in many previous works ("Angèle "and the famous trilogy), lonely teacher ("Merlusse" ) ,halfwit ("Angèle" );Manon 's family was rejected from the start because her dad was a hunchback (superstitions would claim it brought bad luck)and had left the country for a while,he was not worthy of their community ;alone in the world with a sick mom we never see ,she 's got a chip on her shoulder;:some say Jacqueline Pagnol ,the attractive director's wife was not a great actress; but her husband made her a winner : a long-haired mysterious wild girl who knows the hills and their secrets (and who knows she's got sex-appeal),she effortlessly wins the audience over.Whereas it took a whole film in the remake, Manon's misfortunes are told here in admirably succint style : Belloiseau's tale , a drawing ,and (which is stunning in Pagnol's work) Ugolin 's visions (special effects in 1952) when he realizes that ,coveting the girl and the farm,he loses on both accounts.

There were things that would never alter ,in the director's canon:aided by a bevy of tremendous actors (they should all be mentioned) ,as usual,he creates dozens of unforgettable characters : you'll remember the butcher who used to give "scraps for the hunchback's dogs" ;the over possessive mom who accuses Manon of having split her dear boy's skull open; the mayor who tactlessly tries to undo the harm they've all done .

And if the director was sometimes accused of "filming plays" , do watch the marvelous landscapes of Provence ,of course filmed on location.And if both "trials " are filmed stage production, then give me more of them!

Comedy walks hand in hand with tragedy in Pagnol's magnum opus ;Raymond Pellegrin reportedly said something like :"Pagnol ,it's the sun on the brink of ruin".

The Film Needs to be Restored

[hdvorin · 9/10 · 11 April 2018]

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*