Cheap A Year in Provence (DVD) (David Tucker) Price

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Customer Reviews of A Year in Provence

Fun for some, but poor-quality DVD
I've been revisiting this wonderful mini-series on DVD, watching it on a hi-res screen, and note that the image-quality is really appalling. It looks like they took an old VHS tape, and strained it through a sieve. Which is probably pretty close to what actually happened, the "sieve" in this case being a really crude digital-compression system. Too bad, because it contains a lot of beautiful scenic photography, which has been turned to mush.

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Is Something Missing?
I thoroughly enjoyed this series(VHS format) but the DVD version seems to be missing some scenes.
Has anyone else noticed this or is it my imagination?

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Better Than the Book!
This 4-video set is one of those rare birds -- an adaptation that is better then the original book. Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence is good, but the screenplay made a few important changes that made all the difference.

The addition of a wife for Mayle is the main difference. While Mayle has a wife in the book, she fades so far into the background as to be virtually invisible. I see from the dedication in the book that her name is Jenny, but since the screenwriter had to create a wife out of whole cloth here, he gave her a new name as well -- Annie. The addition of Annie and the casting of Lindsay Crouse make all the difference.

Another difference was to subtract ex-spouses and grown children, which serves to streamline the story. Peter in the film is somewhat more short-tempered and loud than Peter in the book, but this makes a nice contrast with Annie. And who is going to make himself out to be a blowhard in his own book, after all? The rest of the story is much as Mayle wrote it.

This set has become one of our family favorites. We borrowed the public library's copies several times, then finally bought our own and watch it at least once a year. It's broken down into twelve 30-minute chapters, one for each month. You can watch it in half hour chunks or 90-minute doses, a whole season (and tape) at a time. The chapters stand alone, but are also threaded together to make a real story. In fact, the story comes together so neatly, that one suspects that although these episodes may really have happened, perhaps they happened over a period of several years, or in a different order. Still, some of the best non-fiction writers out there are novelists at heart.

The acting and the scenery in A Year in Provence are just great. The French characters are played by French actors and speak no English in the film. Since the Mayles are learning French, they are able to translate for us and it doesn't seem awkward.

There you have it: entertaining writing, good acting, gorgeous scenery, and a free French lesson thrown in.