Manon of the Spring (French: Manon des sources, pronounced [manɔ̃ de suʁs]) is a 1952 French two-part drama film directed by Marcel Pagnol and starring Jacqueline Pagnol, Raymond Pellegrin and Rellys. The diptych and the first film are both titled Manon of the Spring, while the second film is titled Ugolin. Marcel Pagnol conceived the film specifically as a vehicle for his wife Jacqueline to star in.
The titular protagonist is a young woman who lives in rural Provence, near a village where she is considered an outsider. As the story unfolds, it gradually reveals how Manon is taking her revenge on the man who tricked her parents out of their property and on the community who let that happen.
Ten years later, Pagnol adapted and expanded the story into the two-volume novel The Water of the Hills. The complete saga was adapted in 1986 as the films Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring.
Contents
Plot
Part one: Manon of the Spring
In a small Provençal village, gendarmes search for Manon, a young woman who lives with her ailing mother in the surrounding hills, where she scrapes out a living by herding goats and poaching. The Mayor and a group of locals explain Manon's story to the village's young and recently arrived schoolteacher. Manon is the daughter of a hunchbacked farmer who died two years earlier: she is nicknamed "Manon of the springs" after her father, known as "the hunchback of the springs" because he kept looking in vain for springs that would irrigate his land, using a dowsing rod.
The hunchback was considered a foreigner in the village, even though he was the son of Florette, a local woman, who had later left to marry a man from another village. Her son eventually came to the village after inheriting there a farm from his uncle. Several villagers comment that the hunchback was the victim of an injustice, and that this may have been averted if they had known at the time that he was Florette's son and was therefore "from the village" on his mother's side. Le Papet ('the grandfather'), the surly village elder who as a young man had unsuccessfully proposed to Florette, argues that since she had married outside the village, she was "no longer from around here" and that marrying a stranger is what caused her son to be hunchbacked. After the hunchback died, his land was bought by a local farmer, Ugolin. Manon is disliked by the local women, who accuse her of being a witch.
In the heights, Manon encounters a friend of hers, an old woman called Baptistine, who is casting a curse on the village because her husband's grave was removed for administrative reasons. Manon is arrested and brought to the village. She is accused of wounding a young man, Polyte, and of stealing melons from Ugolin's farm. The chief gendarme improvises an informal public trial to determine whether she can be charged. The schoolteacher stands up for Manon whom he calls a victim of bigotry and superstition. Manon explains that Polyte tried to sexually assault her, so she fought him back. Ugolin also defends Manon and says that he gave the melons to her. Manon is let free.
The villagers prepare the local celebration, the feast of the fountain. Manon goes back to the hills. She is reunited with Baptistine, who shows her where and how to carry out her revenge and says: “Now that you have seen, do whatever you want!”. Manon later befriends the schoolteacher. During their conversation, she expresses dislike for the villagers. She also tells him that when she was a child she, her brother, and their parents had to walk miles each day to get water to irrigate their farm. Ugolin later bought the farm and found a spring on the land right away. Manon mentions the curse cast by Baptistine: the schoolteacher scoffs at this, but she implies that catastrophe could befall on the village.
Part two: Ugolin
A rural engineer tries to determine why the spring dried up, but has no clues. He advises the villagers to get water from a tanker truck, or to leave the village altogether. Manon later observes Ugolin in the heights, as he prays in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary, begging her to bring back the water and admitting that he did something evil.
The next day, during his sermon at mass, the priest suggests that the village may be punished by God because someone committed a misdeed; he says that those who know of an injustice and do nothing about it are equally guilty, and urges all the villagers to examine their conscience. He announces that a procession in Saint Dominic's honor will be held, to invoke the Lord and pray for the water's return. After mass, the schoolteacher reminds Manon of their earlier conversation where she had said that a disaster could occur; she answers: "You know very well that I'm a bit of a witch!" and mentions that she plans to leave the village. He asks her to come to the meeting that will be held at his home.
Later the same day, a group of villagers meet in the schoolteacher's garden to address the situation. They soon imply that Ugolin is responsible. Manon joins the conversation and openly accuses Ugolin, who denies any wrongdoing. Several men admit that everyone in the village had guessed that Ugolin had somehow tricked the hunchback. Only Le Papet supports his nephew Ugolin. Manon then reveals that Ugolin had plugged the only spring that irrigated her family's farm. To try and save the farm, her father had to go into debt with Ugolin, allowing him to later become the farm's owner. Ugolin asserts that he was honest to the hunchback and merely helped him out by lending him money. Manon's claims are supported by Eliacin, a younger villager who, as a child, saw Ugolin plug the spring with cement he had stolen from his father. Manon reminds how her family was driven to poverty and desperation by Ugolin's misdeed, as no one in the village helped nor warned them: her brother, Paul, died of poisoning after drinking unsafe water from a cistern, her father later died of heartbreak and her mother went insane. Without confessing outright, Ugolin implies that he has been tortured for years by remorse, and that he wants to give everything back to Manon by marrying her. He kneels before Manon and pleads his love for her; she rejects him in disgust. As everyone turns against him, Ugolin keeps protesting his innocence; when asked to swear on the Gospel, he refuses, then flees in disgrace.
A delirious Ugolin wanders through the hills; he has visions of the hunchback and his family as they carried water for their farm. The villagers decide to visit Ugolin so he can formalize the restitution of the farm to Manon. After getting to Ugolin's home, they find his written confession, then Ugolin himself who has committed suicide by hanging. The villagers visit Manon to inform her that Ugolin is dead and that he has transferred the farm to her by will. They ask her to come to the procession. The schoolteacher later talks to Manon and persuades her to renounce her vengeance against the village. They both go to the crevice and unplug the spring.
Production
Manon of the Spring was conceived by Marcel Pagnol as a "gift" for his wife, actress Jacqueline Pagnol, whom he had married in 1945 and who had starred in his three previous films, Naïs, The Pretty Miller Girl and Topaze. The latter film had been Pagnol's biggest post-war box-office success, granting him greater freedom on his next projects.
Pagnol based his script on an allegedly true story he had been told as a child, about a young woman who had taken revenge on those who had appropriated her father's farm. Depending on the versions, the story involved a spring. Pagnol also drew some inspiration from the memories of Jacqueline, who had herded goats as a child.
Pagnol wished to cast his frequent collaborator Fernandel, then one of France's biggest stars, as Ugolin, but the actor, who had just made several films in a row and was busy with other projects, turned down the role. Pagnol was so displeased by Fernandel's refusal that the two men remained at odds for several years. Pagnol considered casting Fernandel's brother, Fransined, but ultimately settled for Rellys.
Filming started in June 1952; it took place at Marseille Studios and on location around La Treille and Aubagne. The film's sets were designed by the art director Eugène Delfau. Shooting took place during a particularly hot summer. To stay in the atmosphere of the film, Pagnol and his wife resided in a house in La Treille throughout the production. Rellys stayed in the same house, allowing Pagnol to explain him his role in detail.
The fountain appearing in several pivotal scenes, situated on place Maurice Thouvenin in La Treille, is now commonly called fontaine Manon des sources (Manon of the Spring fountain).
Release and reception
Pagnol's first cut lasted six hours. It was later reduced to four hours, as Pagnol considered that there was enough material for two 2-hour films. At the request of distributor Gaumont, Pagnol further reduced the cut to three hours. The film premiered in Nice in December 1952. It was well received by audiences, though critical reception was mixed. When the film received a general theatrical release in January 1953, Jean de Baroncelli of Le Monde argued that, at three hours, it was still too long. At Gaumont's request, Pagnol made a shorter, 90-minute version of the film.
The film was a commercial success upon release, selling 4,2 million admissions and ranking 9th at the box-office for 1953.
Film historian Colin Crisp later called Manon of the Spring "one of the great triumphs of naive filmmaking, picking up on and continuing Marcel Pagnol’s great prewar films", though he found Jacqueline Pagnol's performance in the title role to be the film's weakest point, noting that the actress was also "too exquisitely made-up (combed hair, plucked eyebrows, lipstick) to convince as a rustic goatherd, let alone as a representative of nature".
In 1968, Pagnol made the film's 4-hour version widely available by re-editing it as a television miniseries consisting of 18 episodes of 15 minutes each.
Retelling as a novel and remake
Encouraged by his film's success and feeling the need to expand its story, Pagnol decided to adapt his script into a novel which would also tell the story of Jean, the hunchback. The two-part book, titled The Water of the Hills (L'Eau des collines), was published ten years after the release of the original film, with the first volume, Jean de Florette, functioning as a "prequel" to the film. The second volume, Manon des sources, retold the film's story with a different structure and additional plot elements. Le Papet was made a much more central character in the novel, where he played a leading role in the scheming against Jean; Pagnol notably added a final plot twist in which Le Papet discovers that Jean was his biological son. In 1986, the novel was adapted into a new two-part film directed by Claude Berri, Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring.
Home media
The four-hour version of Manon of the Spring was released on DVD in 2007. In 2023, it was released on Blu-ray, in a restored 4K version supervised by Marcel Pagnol's grandson Nicolas. It was also released on VOD on several streaming services including Pathé Home, Canal+ and Arte.