Introduction
Despite a common intention to improve the world and create the best living conditions, poverty remains one of the most controversial issues in modern society, as well as it was for several centuries. Such processes as industrialization, cooperation, and technological advancement affect human life and work quality. However, with time, it is hard to ignore the ambiguity of industrialization.
On the one hand, social achievements promote new opportunities and advancement for people from different layers. On the other hand, certain social problems and hardships continue emerging and enlarging the gap between the rich and the working poor (Noble et al., 2013). Claude Berri focuses on these differences and disagreements in his movie “Germinal” based on Émile Zola’s novel.
The film raises various urgent topics related to industrialization, capitalism, socialism, and the worth of human labor. Berri (1993) proves that people are courageous if guided by truth and justice, but they cannot predict the price to pay for their attempts. “Germinal” reveals the contrast between the misery of poor miners and the luxury in which the bourgeoisie lived in the middle of the 1800s by discussing human needs, expectations, and oppression.
Contrasts in Class and Community
In the movie, Berri wants to share several critical messages with the viewer. It is not enough to represent poverty as the main social and economic problem in 19th-century France. The director compares the beauty and ugliness of interpersonal relationships through the prism of their needs and expectations.
There are three major communities in the same city, including the wealthy bourgeoisie, poor miners and their families, and middle-class workers who co-exist between the two worlds. All of them have and follow their own truths and do not notice how their decisions destroy their lives.
One of the mine owners admits that employees can only make a living after he makes a living first (Berri, 1993). Although collaboration was obligatory for social growth, individualism, and selfish materialism prevailed and weakened the community (Noble et al., 2013). Without even understanding it, all the wealthy beyond measure find it normal to exploit the workers, not because of a threat of bankruptcy, but because they want to have more.
The Divide Between Labor and Ownership
In the world, there will always be two groups of people: those who perform physical work and those who use the results of such work, meaning poor employees and rich owners. In the movie, Berri tries to distinguish these individuals: the Maheu family and their supporters on the one side and the Hennebeau family and their friends or colleagues on the other side. Maheu and his wife support each other to ensure their children have enough food to eat and enough skills to earn a living. They have some complaints about the inability to earn enough despite the amount of work they do every day. They seem not to be living but surviving in this world where justice is neglected.
Mr. Hennebeau and his wife, on the contrary, believe that striking people should not complain because they get housing and heat and cannot save money because of regular drinking habits or having too many children (Berri, 1993). These controversies continue to grow because miners and their owners refuse to understand each other and find a consensus to strengthen their cooperation.
Survival vs. Indulgence
One possible reason for such misunderstandings is the identification of human needs in two different societies. Poor miners lack food and water to meet their basic needs, like eating, drinking, and washing. In the movie, the Maheus have to use the same water to clean themselves after a hard day. In one of the scenes when Catherine bathes in front of her father and brothers during their meals, Berri (1993) underlines the highest level of tiredness and hopelessness among miner families.
The men are too busy or too obsessed with their needs to notice a naked girl in the same room. They eat cheap food and water-like soup from the same dirty plates, while the rich are disappointed with not having oysters but a pheasant and shrimp on their table (Berri, 1993). The differences between the needs of the two families are evident and somewhat ridiculous, proving that owners are never at risk of bankruptcy, just at risk of staying impudent and shameless.
Expectations and Resistance
Another way to compare the misery of miners and the luxury of the bourgeoisie is to discuss the characters’ expectations. In “Germinal,” the strike is the only solution poor people see to protect their rights and request fair payments. Miners expect quantity, not blood, as a solid approach to making them recognizable and respected in society (Berri, 1993).
Étienne Lantier, together with Toussaint Maheu and other unsatisfied citizens, takes a step and stops working to show the inevitability of negative changes. However, instead of accepting the minimal demands of employees, the owners cut their wages and explained that a strike would be a disaster for everyone. Mr. Grégoire and other investors realize that they can find other labor forces, and the miners without a job could start starving in a week (Berri, 1993). The disparity between rich and poor was inevitable, and poverty made workers suffer in the middle of the 19th century (Noble et al., 2013). Wealthy people were able to squeeze every last penny from their businesses to meet their expectations and live a lavish life.
Oppression and Incomprehension
Finally, oppression is the factor that differentiates people from rich and poor families. Most miner families are oppressed by the limitations on their salaries and access to food. They cry out loud that they are hungry and that they are tired of being poor (Berri, 1993). These people do not have a chance to change their financial statuses and have to adapt to minimal resources and opportunities (Noble et al., 2013).
The bourgeoisie seems to have no similar problems, but the needs and expectations of poor people oppress them. They cannot understand why families with such low incomes continue making babies and asking for additional help from them; when Maheude comes to Madame Grégoire, the latter only shares some clothes and a piece of bread (not even the whole loaf), although she is aware that the family with seven children starves (Berri, 1993). The unwillingness to understand the needs of each other due to oppression becomes the cause of strikes and losses of human lives.
Conclusion
“Germinal” is a perfect and, at the same time, awful story about the challenges people faced in the middle of the 1800s. Berri does not want to hide the misery and damage poor families experience by comparing their living conditions with those of the bourgeoisie. The striking workers demand better wages, not to improve their lives but to get an opportunity to survive and feed themselves.
The rich do not even want to understand their complaints because, in their opinion, miners have enough, including housing and heat. Still, the question of food access remains open, and poor communities need some money to buy meat and complete their functions. The luxurious existence of the bourgeoisie makes them blind and brazen. As a result, strikes, revolutions, and conflicts absorbed and weakened France in the 19th century.
References
Berri, C. (1993). Germinal [Film]. AMLF.
Noble, T. F. X., Strauss, B. S., Osheim, D. J., Accampo, E. A., Neuschel, K., Roberts, D. D., & Cohen, W. B. (2013). Western civilization: Beyond boundaries (7th ed.). Cengage Learning.