‘Angel’s’ Beart Has a Date With ‘Manon’

Five months seems a long time to wait for the conclusion of an utterly compelling story and, in the opinion of most people who saw the movie version of Marcel Pagnol’s “Jean de Florette,” it is.

One who feels particularly strongly about this is Emmanuelle Beart (pronounced Bay-ARE), the French actress who stars in the title role of the follow-up film, “Manon of the Spring.”

“Jean de Florette,” starring Yves Montand, Gerard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil, opened here to fine notices in July. “Manon of the Spring,” starring Montand, Auteuil and Beart, opens Christmas Day.

“A long wait,” said Beart. “In France, it was not so long,” just over three months.

Based on Pagnol’s 1963 novel “L’Eau des Collines,” the first film’s plot concerned a rascally farmer (Montand) who, together with his nephew (Auteuil), contrives to get a hunchback’s (Depardieu) land by damming his source of water.

In the concluding film, the farmer and his nephew get their comeuppance from Manon, the hunchback’s daughter.

Simple stuff? Yes. But a real slice of life. The two movies are among the most successful ever made in France.

“In France, we don’t make many big movies,” said Beart on a visit to Los Angeles. “So these were quite an event. People clamored to see the conclusion.”

Just who is Beart? Unknown here except for her role in last month’s “Date With an Angel,” her first American movie, the 22-year-old is already heralded as a new star in France and, since winning the Cesar (France’s Oscar) for “Manon,” is much in demand.

Can a French-language movie make a star of someone outside France--even if she does speak fluent English? Beart is not sure.

“I don’t want to live here--I prefer Paris,” she said. “But I would like to work here again.

“It’s interesting. If I tell my French friends I’m making a movie in America, they’re terribly impressed. A lot of them look on anything to do with this country as if it came from God. You wouldn’t think so, would you? I mean, the French are so chauvinistic.”

What was all this? “The French.” She was talking as if she were an outsider.

“Well, I am. I was born there (on a farm outside St. Tropez) but I have not a drop of French blood in me. My mother was born in England, my father in Egypt and my grandmother in Turkey.

“I come from a totally Mediterranean family so, like a lot of Americans, I find the French reserve and distrust of strangers very odd. I wasn’t brought up like that at all. My grandmother stops people in the street to talk to them. That’s probably why I like Americans; they’re so open and friendly.”

Most young actresses say they were besotted by the silver screen from an early age.

Not Beart. She never even saw a movie until she was in her mid-teens.

“I grew up on our farm, the eldest of seven children. We made our own amusement. We didn’t even watch much TV--my mother didn’t approve. It wasn’t until I went to Canada as an au pair that I saw my first movie.”

She was then just 15, anxious to learn English and with no thought of being an actress.

“Why would I?” she said. “But one day in Montreal, I was given an introduction to Robert Altman, who was in town planning a movie. And he encouraged me.”

Once back home, she enrolled in drama school and landed a few parts, among them, David Hamilton’s “Premiers Desirs.” She was nominated for a Cesar for her performance in “Un Amour Interdit” and it was at the awards dinner (she didn’t win) that she met director Claude Berri, who was about to start shooting “Jean de Florette” and “Manon of the Spring.”

She got the role. And so effective was she that when the movie opened in France, Pagnol’s widow, Jacqueline (he died in 1974), told her: “You are Manon.”

“It’s not a great time to be an actress in France,” Beart said. “Our movie industry is in a bad way. The first 10 movies at the box office tend to be American, which is not good for us. Very few French movies are made on the scale of ‘Jean de Florette’ and ‘Manon of the Spring’--mostly we concentrate on little psychological dramas and comedies. And people aren’t going to leave their homes for those. So of course I would like to work here again.”

One who is encouraging her to do so is 85-year-old grandmother Nellie.

“I brought her here when I was making ‘Date With an Angel,’ ” said Beart. “It was her first trip. She doesn’t speak a word of English. But she had a great time. In fact, she wanted to stay. She thought people here were so friendly.

“It’s the same reaction I had when I first arrived in Canada. People were so nice to me. Maybe it’s all superficial, as the French maintain. But so what? It makes life a lot pleasanter.”