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Jacques Brel Filmography
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Jacques Brel (April 8, 1929 - October 9, 1978) was a Belgian French-speaking author-composer with such strong power of expression in his lyrics that many consider him a poet as well. He also had some minor activity as an actor and director. He was born in Schaerbeek, Belgium, a small city north of Brussels, lived most of his life in Paris, and died in the Marquesas Islands.
In the early 1950s he relocated to Paris, writing music and singing in the city cabarets and music-halls, where on stage he delivered his songs with grand physical gestures. After some success his wife and daughters joined him from Belgium. By 1956 he was touring Europe and he recorded the song
Quand on n'a que l'amour that brought him his first major recognition. He appeared in a show with
Maurice Chevalier and Michel Legrand.
His themes are extremely diverse, exploring love (
Je t'aime, Litanies pour un retour, Dulcinéa), society (Les singes, Les bourgeois, Jaurès) and spiritual concerns (Le bon Dieu, Dites, si c'était vrai, Fernand). His work is not limited to one style. He was as proficient in funny compositions (Les bonbons, Le lion, Comment tuer l'amant de sa femme...) as in heart-breaking ones (Voir un ami pleurer, Fils de..., Jojo).
Brel's acute perception made him an innovative and creative painter of daily life with rare poetic ease. He was a master poet. His intelligent use of words was striking and simple, exhibiting a very visual and meaningful vocabulary. Few of his peers are considered to match his skill in fitting as much novelty and meaning in a sentence from a few words of common use.
Brel also had a keen sense of metaphor, as in
Je suis un soir d'été where the narrator is a summer's evening telling what he observes as he falls on a city. Although regarded a master with lyrics, his musical themes were of the first standard, and also here he was not limited to one style.He composed both rhythmic, lively and captivating tunes (
L'aventure, Rosa, Au printemps) as well as sad and solemn songs. (La quête, J'en appelle, Pourquoi faut-il que les hommes s'ennuient?)
He composed and recorded his songs almost exclusively in French,and is widely recognized in French-speaking countries as one of the best French-language composers of all time.But he occasionally included parts in Dutch as in
Marieke, and also recorded Dutch versions of a few songs such as Le Plat Pays and Les bourgeois (since his own command of the language was poor, these were translated by Ernst van Altena, renowned translator of French song).
His attitude towards the Flemish seemed contradictory: at times he declared himself Flemish and presented himself to the world as a Flemish singer, but he also mocked rustic Flemish life with the comic song
Les Flamandes. Later in his career he directed his anger at the
flamingants (supporters of the Flemish movement). From
La, la, la (1967) are the words "Vive les Belgiens, merde pour les flamingants" ("Long live Belgians, shit for the flamingants"). In Les F... (1977) Brel portrays the
flamingants as "Nazis durant les guerres et catholiques entre elles" ("Nazis during the wars and catholics in between"). Apparently to Brel all
flamingants were far-right extremists (similar to the later Vlaams Blok). See
this article (in French) from the Belgian paper Le Soir for further discussion.
Although France was Brel's "spiritual nation" and he expressed contradictory statements about his native Belgium, many overlook this matter as some of his best compositions pay tribute to Belgium, like
Le plat pays or Il neige sur Liège.
As an actor he gained fame playing opposite Claude Jade in the film My uncle Benjamin.
He appeared in the musical
l'homme de la Mancha (Man of La Mancha) which he also directed, and appeared in films, though his film performances are not thought to be of quite the same caliber as his musical performances. For twenty years he was a major star gaining recognition beyond French audiences. In 1973 he retreated to French Polynesia, remaining there until 1977 when he returned to Paris and recorded his well-received final album.
Brel died of lung cancer and was buried in Calvary Cemetery in Atuona, Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia only a few yards away from painter Paul Gauguin.
Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris was an American musical revue of the art of Jacques Brel which has played around the world for years. Including definitive rhyming translations of his work into English, it was put together by Brel's friend Mort Shuman and debuted in 1968. The work is performed by two men and two women (originally Elly Stone, Mort Shuman, Shawn Elliott, and Alice Whitfield). In 1974, a movie of the show was made, featuring the original cast
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0121411/.
English translations of his songs have been recorded by
David Bowie, Scott Walker, Terry Jacks, Alex Harvey, Jack Lukeman,
Marc Almond and the Paper Chase.
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