Monthly Archives: June 2021

Film, TV, and Theatre

Claude Berri’s Jean de Florette (1986)

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Jean de Flo­rette is a 1986 French com­e­dy-dra­ma film direct­ed by Claude Berri and based on a nov­el by one of France’s great­est 20th cen­tu­ry writ­ers, Mar­cel Pag­nol. The film takes place in rur­al Provence, where two local farm­ers (Yves Mon­tand and Daniel Auteuil) plot to trick a new­com­er (Gérard Depar­dieu) out of his new­ly inher­it­ed prop­er­ty. The film thus stars three of France’s most promi­nent actors, and this is a great place to see them all in action in one place.

The film was shot back to back with its sequel, Manon des Sources, over a peri­od of sev­en months in and around the Vau­cluse depart­ment of Provence, and whilst at the time it was the most expen­sive French film ever made, it was also a great com­mer­cial and crit­i­cal suc­cess, both domes­ti­cal­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly, and was nom­i­nat­ed for eight César awards, and ten BAF­TAs. The suc­cess of the two films helped pro­mote Provence as a tourist des­ti­na­tion (a ten­den­cy that was cement­ed three years lat­er when Peter Mayle’s best-sell­ing mem­oir, A Year in Provence, was pub­lished ).

Any­way, I have my mate Jason’s wife Liz to thank for intro­duc­ing me to Jean de Flo­rette: whilst at their house sev­er­al years ago, she thrust the DVD of the film into my hands, say­ing “you’ll love this”. I took it home and duti­ful­ly watched it…and she was right! What was at first sight an obscure French film with a dull name and an odd plot became a huge­ly enjoy­able ride. The plot is indeed unusu­al, involv­ing jeal­ous designs on rur­al arable land, hare-brained plans and machi­na­tions around the block­ing up of a nat­ur­al spring. How­ev­er, it is a joy to watch: the rur­al vil­lage scenes are so glo­ri­ous­ly, authen­ti­cal­ly French, and the char­ac­ters con­jured up by these great actors, and a strong sup­port­ing cast, are tremen­dous.

This scene I have cho­sen is pret­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tive, I think: we have Depardieu’s irre­press­ibly opti­mistic Jean, pros­e­lytis­ing about his plans to breed rab­bits and grow mar­rows, Auteuil’s Ugolin try­ing at every turn to dis­suade and dispir­it him, and Montand’s Le Papet (Ugolin’s uncle), a wily owl pre­sid­ing over his and Ugolin’s schemes to dri­ve the new­com­er away and take the land for them­selves.

Daniel Auteuil, Yves Mon­tand, Gérard Depar­dieu

Music

Be-Bop Deluxe’s Modern Music (1976)

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I don’t recall now how I actu­al­ly dis­cov­ered Be-Bop Deluxe and came to be the own­er of their 1976 album Mod­ern Music. Pos­si­bly I heard the album’s sin­gle Kiss of Light on the radio, since it is that song that slots into my mem­o­ry as “the first”. Equal­ly, I may have been intro­duced by school­mates Rocky Col­lier or Chris Hobbs, since they too were big fans and indeed the lat­ter was there with me at my first ever gig: Be-Bop Deluxe at Leeds Grand The­atre, Feb­ru­ary 1978. How­ev­er, own the album I did, and my over­rid­ing mem­o­ry is the feel­ing of rev­er­ence I had for it. The themes and con­cepts con­jured up by band leader and gui­tar genius Bill Nel­son were thrilling and oth­er­world­ly; I recall at the foot of the back cov­er a line that summed it up sim­ply but effec­tive­ly: “Music and lyrics writ­ten by Bill Nel­son to enchant”.

Mod­ern Music was the band’s fourth album, so I had dis­cov­ered them late (to be fair, I was only thir­teen) and only ret­ro­spec­tive­ly edu­cat­ed myself in the band’s evo­lu­tion from glam rock pre­tenders to sophis­ti­cat­ed art rock­ers. The band had formed in Wake­field in 1972 and had start­ed out play­ing the West York­shire pub scene, one reg­u­lar venue being the Stag­ing Post in Whin­moor, Leeds. Sev­er­al per­son­nel changes had ensued by the time I had got into them, with my defin­i­tive line-up being Simon Fox on drums, Char­lie Tuma­hai on bass and Andy Clark on key­boards, an ensem­ble that under­stood Nelson’s vision and was emi­nent­ly capa­ble of help­ing him man­i­fest it.

The track list­ing itself gives hints of the fan­tas­ti­cal nature of that vision: Orphans of Baby­lon, The Bird Charmer’s Des­tiny, Hon­ey­moon on Mars, The Dance of the Uncle Sam Humanoids. To the unini­ti­at­ed, such titles might smack of prog-rock con­cept-album pre­ten­sion but the melodies, the tex­tures, the hooks, and the over­all musi­cal splen­dour argue against such a sim­plis­tic appraisal. It is cer­tain­ly con­cep­tu­al, and indeed Nel­son can get away with mak­ing the whole of side B a suite of short tracks merg­ing into one anoth­er, but pre­ten­tious it ain’t. Too much qual­i­ty.

The album cov­er shows the band besuit­ed and un-rock star like, with Bill pre­scient­ly sport­ing a “TV-watch” (or smart­watch, as we’d call it today, albeit with­out the anten­nas!). This was noth­ing like their glam rock ori­gins, nor any­thing like the punk nihilism that was burst­ing onto the scene at around the same time (in the same month as the album’s release, Sep­tem­ber 1976, the 100 Club was host­ing a two-day punk fes­ti­val fea­tur­ing the Sex Pis­tols, the Clash and the Damned). Mod­ern Music rep­re­sent­ed a unique sound and vision, and although the band would only release one more album and dis­band before they could achieve last­ing fame, it stands as a mon­u­ment to Bill Nelson’s con­sid­er­able musi­cal abil­i­ties.

Here is the title track, which gives but a flavour of the music though I would rec­om­mend immers­ing one­self in the whole album to get the prop­er Be-Bop expe­ri­ence.

Be Bop Deluxe