Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris

For American fans of Jacques Brel, this is a rare opportunity to see him perform. The rest of the cast is excellent. This movie was part of a series of stage performances that the Zanucks put on film. They ran as a subscription series in very limited venues. All were good, some excellent, all very different from what was generally available.

I saw this film in 1975 as part of the AFI series at UCLA. Walking into the theatre, I had no idea what to expect and had never heard of Jacques Brel before. I became a huge Jacques Brel fan that evening and have enjoyed his music for the last 27 years. This film is a delightful cabaret of music video before it even existed. Ellie Stone's torch singing performance, in particular, made me a fan for life. The rest of the cast was equally dynamic; I can still hear "Next" being sung inside my head. Brel's work is touching, political, brilliant. This film was available on video for a very short time in the early 80's. How I wish I had purchased it then as it is no longer available. I would love to see this film over and over again.

Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well And Living In The Sewer. This is a chanson and babble artifact. Prince Jacques Brel is one of the most notorious human mimes ever (breakout 1975 Paris) - second only to La Bonhomme who broke out of his invisible box at the Quebec City Winter Carnival 1604. In this compilation movie, we see a combination of such subtle physicality and the babble that made Brel such a threat. Enjoy it for the babble, but learn, should the threat of human mime occur again. Human Alert: MIMES; No Rating: Babble Artifact and VOSTFR designations; Learning merit: 1.

This adaptation of the stage play is so dated that it almost overshadows the amazing performances. Elly Stone does not have your typical voice but she does have all the power and passion that you could ever add to an interpretation of a Brel song. Watching her sing "Sons of..." is the highpoint of the film.

The worst thing about this film is it starts out so poorly it is hard to recover. The opening renditions are very poorly shot. and there are some non-singing, non-vocal moments of "surrealism" that are too awful to be believed. But as we settle into the idea of not having a plot and not apologizing for this fact, the songs become more straight-forward performances. The heartbreaking "Song for Old Lovers" is the highpoint towards the end. It is, however, unfortunate that such a crazy song as sung by Ms. Stone, namely "Carousel", is ruined by some very petty editing "techniques" that climaxes in an image we've already seen and that wasn't effective the first time.

Some other song highlights are "Next" and "Mathilde", but it is Ms. Stone that really makes you feel the urgency of these songs. If we could just watch her and the other cast just perform these the way they did on stage, it would have been a better film. But the director decides to rely on some cinematic tricks that just look worse after time.

As for Brel's appearance, it is slightly anti-climactic, but utterly moving. His is the saddest and most recognizable of all the songs gathered here, and in its original French the most authentic. We should consider ourselves lucky for the documentation of that moment.

I would advise anyone who is willing to watch this to skip the first 8 chapters or so, and start with "Alone" sung by the Priest at the funeral. Then the film is shorter and you miss the embarrassing opening numbers...

My introduction to the music of Jacques Brel was through The American Film Theater's adaptation of the long-running off-Broadway revue JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN PARIS. Starring two of the original cast (Elly Stone and Brel's English lyric translator Mort Shuman) and a cast replacement (Joe Masielle), Brel's haunting music is vividly brought to life in an eclectic film. There's no real plot to speak of, but here, you don't need one- the music speaks for itself. Even The Master appears to sing one of his hits ("Ne Me Quitte Pas"), and his back-up cast effectively sing about love, loss, pain and the ultimate triumph of the Human Spirit. For Broadway buffs, it's a treat to know that several other actors who appeared on stage in this revue have cameo appearances (Shawn Elliott, Judy Landers and Annette Perone). The joyous news is that Kino Video will be finally releasing the film on VHS and DVD in April 2003- after watching a butchered print taken from commercial tv, you can bet that this movie is going to be watched on my DVD player over and over. Do yourself a favor and experience this wonderful film...your heart will NEVER forget it!