THE MOVIES Study in revenge

Press, 24 February 1989, Page 23

THE MOVIES Study in revenge

By HANS PETROVIC “Manon of the Spring,” the sequel to "Jean de Florette,” starts today at the Regent. Although both films are complete on their own, “Manon” tells the followup story of the young woman who seeks revenge from two Provencal farmers who were instrumental for her father’s death 10 years earlier. “Manon” stars Emmanuelle Beart in the title role, with Yves Montand and Daniel Auteuil as the farmers. From Monday, “Manon” will screen at the 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. sessions, while people can still catch up with “Jean de Florette” at 6 p.m. screenings. Based on earlier films and a book by Marcel

Pagnol, Claude Berri’s new, adapted versions are the two biggest box-office successes ever made in France.

By the time “Manon of the Spring” opened on November 19, 1986, with 375 prints, 4,832,000 tickets had been sold to “Jean de Florette.” By the end of that year, more than 6.5 million people had seen “Jean de Florette,” and 5 million had seen “Manon of the Spring,” making them the two highest grossing films in France that year. Writing from Paris for the “New York Times” on December 7, 1986, Richard Bernstein remarked that in France, Berri’s films have sparked “nothing less than a Pagnol renaissance, signaled by the sudden appearance

of the old master on magazine covers, in newspaper supplements, in written reminiscences by surviving friends.”

The films received France’s 1986 Grand Prize of the National Cinema Academy and received eight Cesar (French Oscar) nominations. On March 7, 1987, Daniel Auteuil received the Cesar for best actor, and Emmanuelle Beart was named best supporting actress, i

On the international front, openings in Norway, Switzerland and Quebec broke box-office records, confirming that the films are not exclusively a French phenomenon and that, properly told, Pagnol’s “old-fashioned” stories can appeal to new

generations at home and abroad. “Jean de Florette/ Manon of the Spring” had its American premiere on June 22, 1987, at New York’s Lincoln Center in a special benefit performance attended by Claude Berri and Yves Montand. "Jean de Florette” opened theatrically in New York on June 26 to rave reviews and impressive boxoffice figures, and has performed equally well in subsequent openings across the country. It is worth-while noting that Pagnol’s wife, Jacqueline, initially so reluctant to have her husband’s book, “L’Eau des Collines,” translated to the screen, did attend the shooting of several scenes and gave the production her blessing.