This film and its sequel are good but fundamentally flawed (spoiler) - Jean de Florette (1987) Discussion

[–] lobotomyboy63 15 years ago

I think it was at the beginning of JdF, when Ugolin comes back, Cesar is after him about getting married. Ugolin asked why he had never married and he said he wasn't cut off. But there was a girl and she never told him that she loved him, "even after what happened between us one night in Anglade's barn."

I concluded that Cesar must have impregnated her in one try. A lot of people throughout history have rolled those dice without the woman getting pregnant, so it doesn't strike me as odd that Cesar didn't assume she was pregnant. And of course the movie points out that ammunition didn't always reach them...letters didn't either, of course.

At the time, the blind woman (and Florette) genuinely believed that Cesar shirked his responsibility when he didn't reply to the letter she'd sent. As she said, if Cesar had written to Florette's father to ask her hand in marriage, nobody in the village would have said a word. But continuing in their belief that he simply didn't want to acknowledge the child, Florette moved away and married.

I don't think she ever knew that the Jean was working himself to death. She's blind, probably cared for in a home. I suppose she and Cesar crossed paths because of Ugolin's funeral.

In the movie (I haven't read the book), Florette left before anybody realized she was pregnant. She married a blacksmith in another village, who probably raised Jean as his own. Why would they cause problems for the child, who was also a hunchback, by telling him or anyone else who the real father was? And by the same token, now that Florette is dead, Jean is dead, and Ugolin's gone...what's the point of concealing it any further?

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[–] FeudalLordAndMaster 15 years ago

'I suppose she and Cesar crossed paths because of Ugolin's funeral'. 'Whats the point of concealing it any further?'
The film and these points are still asking you to accept Delphine (the blind old woman who was a friend of JdF's mother) was occupied with other things or automatically asserted Cesar shirked his responsibility without any conversation with him relating to this living in proximity for what I presume are decades.As much as I enjoyed the 2 films this chasm is unwillingly almost as memorable.

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[–] lobotomyboy63 15 years ago

No, I don't assume that Delphine was occupied with other things. Maybe it went something like this...

Cesar impregnates Florette. He leaves for Africa. She discovers she's pregnant and sends him a letter. He never gets the letter but she assumes he did and takes his silence to mean "No, I won't marry you." Of course they had phones but she couldn't call the front line to talk to him or anything.

At that point, she would be in a bind. If she carries the baby, everyone in the village will start to notice. She tries to lose the baby, jumping off rocks and taking weird potions, but nothing works.

Maybe she should have written him again? If she truly believed that his answer was simply no, she would have possibly been too proud or just figured there would be more silence. There's a child growing inside her, and there may be a long turnaround on a letter to/from the front line in Africa.

Tick tock, what is she going to do? She chose to move. If they'd had cell phones or internet or something else, maybe it never would have happened. But it did. She didn't have five years to figure it all out or second-guess herself.

I'm prepared to chalk this up to "Women! They're exasperating!" but men get proud too. The theme music, La Forza del Destino, is perfect. They're undone by a fatal flaw, i.e. pride. IIRC Delphine swore to Florette that she wouldn't say anything. I read this as Florette saying, "Yeah, well if he won't take responsibility, screw him!" And she's moved on to a new life, probably told the blacksmith that the child was his, and revealing it is going to introduce more complications.

As for Florette trying to lose the baby, wow. I infer that the crazy stuff she was doing was what caused the child to be born "bossu." It suggests to me that she really loved Cesar in that women love children but she was prepared to lose it because she loved him more.

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[–] Frank_Z 14 years ago

Of course they had phones but she couldn't call the front line to talk to him or anything.

Given Cesar and Jean's apparent ages, it would seem reasonable to place Cesar's military service (and Jean's birth) in the 1890's. There were certainly very few telephones in rural areas before 1900. In fact, according to the French Wikipedia, in 1912, there was 1 telephone for every 183 people in France. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A9l%C3%A9phone It seems reasonable to think that few of those were outside of major cities. So I would not assume that at that point Florette had any access to a telephone for any purpose. And certainly not to make a call to Africa.

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[–] paleolith 14 years ago

living in proximity for what I presume are decades

No, Delphine/Grafinette moved to Crespin with Florette. This is clear about 10 minutes into the movie, when Cesar is writing a letter to Delphine. He wouldn't be writing a letter if she were living locally. I haven't figured out just how far away Crespin is supposed to be -- close enough to be a rival but far enough to be more than a casual journey. There does not appear to be a town with that name near modern day Aubagne.

Then just before Ugolin's funeral, you see her getting off a bus. She has returned for the funeral. After all, she wasn't just Florette's friend -- they both grew up in the village. She knew Cesar and may have known others in the family, though not Ugolin.

As twists in movies go, this was one of the easiest for me to swallow. It all works together.

Edward

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[–] Lem_Fliggity 14 years ago

Delphine and Graffignette are not the same woman. Delphine was older than Cesar and Florette by a good 10 years. She was the aunt of the village fountaineer and moved to Marseille. Graffignette moved to Crespin and was Florette's best friend.

One also has to remember that the #1 rule in Les Bastides Blanche is "stay out of other people's business." It wasn't Delphine's place to tell Cesar about Jean, until long after it was too late. It's a way that you'll find in many rural villages, and it has typically meant that a lot of heinous crimes went unpunished because no one talked about it.

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[–] paleolith 14 years ago

Did you get that from the movie or did you read the book? I'm curious because I don't remember anything in the movie that gave these details about Delphine.

I totally agree about the #1 rule.

Edward

EDIT: oh, I see you already posted the answer in another thread. From the book. Thanks.

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[–] squanchy_56 14 years ago

Delphine didn't live in the village and there is no evidence that she knew anything about Jean working himself to death.

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[–] asphycsia 14 years ago

Congratulations on missing the point of both movies. Both of them, at their core, are examinations of the damage that greed and prejudice do and how we often assume things of other people without evidence or asking for their side of the story.

The mess between César and Florette seems to be a case of both of them not being able to understand each other. Judging by the comments made about her (she moved money, she was "thrifty"), Florette seems to have been rather materialistic and icy. César, frankly, was often a manipulative jerk. Though both of them loved each other, neither of them loved each other enough to refrain from jumping to conclusions.

Florette and Delphine both misinterpreted César's failure to reply to her letter. They continued to misinterpret César when he never tried to contact him after he returned from the war. (In Delphine's letter in the first film, she writes that he hasn't written for thirty years) He thought that Florette had up and married someone else; after all, she never admitted that she loved him, even after they had sex. Conversely, Delphine and Florette thought César never tried to contact them because he didn't care about Florette or her baby.

Why didn't Delphine ask César for his side of the story? Because she was too proud and assumed that César didn't really love Florette either. Is that fair? No, but it's a theme that runs throughout the films. Why don't any of the villagers intervene and try to help Jean? Better yet, why didn't César confront Florette and ask her why she married someone else?

_______________________________________
Salva nos stella maris et regina celorum

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[–] 14 years ago

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[–] Frank_Z 14 years ago

I read the story after having seen the movies when they were fairly new. Back when my command of French was a little better than it is now. It was interesting and only slightly different. There are details that do not conflict with the movie but that add to it. It has been over 15 years now and I do not remember many details of the differences, however.

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[–] Remnant_Of_The_Abyss 14 years ago

Saw them both about 3 months ago,the daughter is a beauty and I'd bone her in a heartbeat...

Who needs to read the rest of your tripe?

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[–] prudhocj 13 years ago

Remnant - your to-the-point comment about Feudal's observation about Manon couldn't be more pungent! In his daydreams if at all.

This whole thread is a hoot - posts have lost the timeline, misread the dialogue and just plain missed the point. Everything is explained from one movie to the next about these relationships, misunderstandings and just plain everyone minding their own business - it's all there!

I was, however, completely floored by the comment about using a telephone to call the front in Africa then or later. Did no one hear the mayor comment that he had the ONLY phone in the village (he said that's why he was the mayor!) and understand the significance of his statement? He had the only phone and it was 44 years AFTER Florette had decamped to Crespin! Obviously there was NO phone in the village 44 years before. How do I know it was 44 years later? Jean came to town at the age of 31, he died between 2 and 3 years later and 10 years had passed since his death.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] lobotomyboy63 13 years ago

I assume prudhocj's comment
I was, however, completely floored by the comment about using a telephone to call the front in Africa then or later. Did no one hear the mayor comment that he had the ONLY phone in the village (he said that's why he was the mayor!) and understand the significance of his statement? He had the only phone and it was 44 years AFTER Florette had decamped to Crespin! Obviously there was NO phone in the village 44 years before. How do I know it was 44 years later? Jean came to town at the age of 31, he died between 2 and 3 years later and 10 years had passed since his death.

refers to what I wrote:
Of course they had phones but she couldn't call the front line to talk to him or anything.

I should have been more clear. I didn't mean they (everybody in town) had phones; I meant they (government entities, especially military) presumably had contact with the front lines. Parallel: now many people have home computers but back in the 1970s, very few did. Governments will get technology long before the common man.

I don't quite have a bead on the years in history involved. If telephones weren't quite available, probably telegraphs---the first sucessful transatlantic cable goes back to 1866, for example. Point being it was at least possible in theory to get a reasonably fast response from somewhere near the front lines.

That said, the fastest lines of communication would be reserved for strictly military matters, which brings us back to sending a letter and assuming it arrives.

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[–] Lem_Fliggity 14 years ago

"having a child out of wedlock (Cesar was with the foreign legion) was the reason she denied telling him Jean was his son"

No it wasn't. She assumed he already knew but didn't care. Remember, Delphine at first did not believe that Cesar hadn't received the letter. Cesar had to swear on the church steeple that he had not.

"all the while knowing his son was working himself to death in his obsession to get the spring flowing"

Delphine did not know what happened to Jean. There is no reason to believe that she did. She hadn't lived in Les Bastides Blanches for many years.

The conversation by the church is basically word-for-word from the novel, although in the novel, there is one more bit that is not in the movie:

The blind woman continued:

"She wrote to me many times, at the beginning. She told me her husband was a marvel, and that the little boy was very intelligent... She hoped that as he grew he would become like the others. And then I got married and I lived in Marseille... When you're far away, you forget quickly... She didn't write me anymore, and I never saw her again... They told me she died, and her husband also... But the little one, I never knew what became of him. He must still be at Crespin. You should go and see him, Cesar. You're alone in the world, you're rich, perhaps he needs you..."

She was silent for a long time, as if absent, beside the immobile Papet.

So it's apparent that Delphine did not know that Jean had died in Les Bastides Blanches. She thought he was still alive and living in Crespin.

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[–] paleolith 14 years ago

So it's apparent that Delphine did not know that Jean had died in Les Bastides Blanches. She thought he was still alive and living in Crespin.

I had the impression on first watching that Delphine clearly knew the significance of telling César that Florette's son was a hunchback. The long lead-up to the word "bossu", the long pause after ... I just rewatched the scene and I realize that it can be taken either way. Berri either wanted it ambiguous or ... ah, but then César in the note to accompany his well, tells Manon that Delphine "knows everything". Did he assume that Manon would tell Delphine enough that they would both figure it out?

I'm leaning toward thinking that Berri decided to change this detail from what Pagnol wrote. It's still ambiguous but I think the implication is that Delphine knew, at least by the time she told César, though perhaps not for long before, just from some point since she returned to the village. It wouldn't have taken any more than hearing someone mention that a hunchback had lived in the Camoins house.

Edward

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[–] Lem_Fliggity 14 years ago

Le Papet writes: "In the village, there's a woman who knows all about it. Take her my letter and she'll explain. It's Delphine, the old blind woman. She'll tell you that it's all the fault of Africa."

I took that to mean Delphine knows that Cesar is Manon's grandfather, and what Cesar wants the old woman to explain is why he never knew about Jean. I guess I go back to the #1 rule in Les Bastides Blanches: people don't gossip. If Delphine was in Marseilles until shortly before Manon's wedding, it seems unlikely she would have heard the full story from someone in the village. But of course, Berri was free to take certain liberties, and I agree that the movie does seem to imply that she knows everything.

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[–] paleolith 14 years ago

Right ... we may be starting to count angels dancing on a pin here ... Delphine already knew almost everything. It's not clear just how far in advance of Manon's wedding she arrived. Did she come *for* the wedding? I don't know, though she stayed after, and apparently César assumes that Manon doesn't know Delphine, so it would seem that she didn't come for the wedding. OTOH, the people of the village by that time knew the Florette/Jean/Manon connection (but not how César fit in), so it's possible that someone sent word to her.

(Oh. Thinking later -- better than never -- she arrived just before the wedding. The couple who get off the bus with her are the ones singing at the wedding, with the atrocious lip-syncing, and they are obviously just visitors. So she hasn't been in the village in many years, comes just in time for the wedding, and stays in the village. Clearly there's something here that just isn't explained in the movie, at least in this version.)

And since Jean was a significant part of the connection between the village and the wedding, it would have only taken a single word to allow Delphine to put that together with her knowledge that Florette's son had a hunchback. Would not have been gossip, just telling who's getting married.

So she didn't need someone to tell her the whole story. Just, really, to be told who was getting married. That after all would not have been held back, a wedding in that size town being a big event. And she was probably still seen as an insider (witness the response to Florette's name, as though she had left the village just yesterday instead of forty years ago), whereas the marriage was between a man who was clearly an outsider and a woman who was initially outsider and then insider.

And of course the bit of knowledge that Delphine did not have was that César had never received Florette's letter. That completed the picture for her.

And for that matter, if César's son not lived and been identifiable to Delphine, would she have confronted César so bitterly? Seems she must have figured out everything but the missing letter to motivate that confrontation. Hmm. I'm confusing myself here. I don't think I've explained anything in this entire post, but the ruminating was fun.

Edward

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[–] Lem_Fliggity 14 years ago

"the ones singing at the wedding, with the atrocious lip-syncing, and they are obviously just visitors."

That's Manon's mother, Aimée, and fellow performer in the opera (and second husband) Victor.

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[–] paleolith 14 years ago

OH. Makes sense. I had even wondered why Elisabeth Depardieu had a credit in the second half. I guess I was too distracted by the awful (basically non-existent) lip syncing to pay attention.

But still they are just visitors -- he has never been there before as far as we know (her expression says "I'm showing you around"), and she didn't live there long enough to be part of the village and was only Florette's daughter-in-law, not her son. And they are wearing the same clothes at the wedding as when they got off the bus. And if Aimée hasn't had time to visit Manon in years, she isn't likely to stay after the wedding.

Edward

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[–] 14 years ago

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[–] highrground 13 years ago

"bone her in a heartbeat" - wonderful and you just sunk and credibility

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[–] Remnant_Of_The_Abyss 13 years ago

Exactly. And as asphycsia said, he missed the point of both films. Probably because he had sex on the brain instead of really thinking about both of these masterpieces unfolding before his eyes.

Therefore, his brain was fundamentally flawed at the time of viewing.

ROTA Quintessential Foreign Language Films List: http://www.imdb.com/list/qQvbXmXhhCU/

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