JEAN DE FLORETTE and MANON OF THE SPRING

JEAN DE FLORETTE and MANON OF THE SPRING

2 Episodes

A sprawling tale of greed, betrayal, and revenge plays out amid the bucolic splendor of the French countryside in Claude Berri’s masterly two-film adaptation of a literary work by the legendary Marcel Pagnol. Spanning three generations in the lives of two families, JEAN DE FLORETTE and MANON OF THE SPRING vividly recreate the provincial world of an early-twentieth-century village, where an outsider’s arrival sets in motion a devastating chain of events. With gorgeous cinematography, keen insights into human nature, and superb performances from icons of French cinema (Gérard Depardieu, Yves Montand, Daniel Auteuil, and Emmanuelle Béart), these richly absorbing moral tales—at the time of their production, the most expensive French films ever made—are triumphs of epic storytelling in the classical tradition.

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JEAN DE FLORETTE and MANON OF THE SPRING
  • Jean de Florette

    Episode 1

    Directed by Claude Berri • 1986 • France
    Starring Yves Montand, Gérard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil

    The sun-dappled beauty of the Provence countryside belies dark motivations, in the first installment of Claude Berri’s monumental pastoral tragedy. When the naively idealistic tax collector Jean Cado...

  • Manon of the Spring

    Episode 2

    Directed by Claude Berri • 1986 • France
    Starring Yves Montand, Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Béart

    Shot simultaneously with JEAN DE FLORETTE, this second chapter in the epic story of the intersecting fates of the Cadoret and Soubeyran families unfolds ten years after the events of the first film, ...