Three attendees at a puppet theater don various roles in order to sing a variety of songs by Jacques Brel, all while hippies and other eccentrics cavort about them.Three attendees at a puppet theater don various roles in order to sing a variety of songs by Jacques Brel, all while hippies and other eccentrics cavort about them.Three attendees at a puppet theater don various roles in order to sing a variety of songs by Jacques Brel, all while hippies and other eccentrics cavort about them.
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThat Jacques Brel knew he was dying is pure fantasy, not to say other words that might easily be deemed offensive. Brel died in 1978 of pneumonia while he was cured for a recurrence of his lung cancer. Between 1974 and 1978, after he had surgery on his left lung, he and his woman alone embarked on a round-the-world tour by boat which eventually led them to Hiva Oa in the Marquis Islands where they settled down. In the years that they spent there, he used his private airplane to help the isolated community bringing them goods from the main island, carrying people to hospital visits, and so on. He also managed with his French filmmaker friends to open up an open-air cinema theatre. Not really the moribund life-style.
- ConnectionsVersion of Jacques Brel er i live, har det godt og bor i Paris (1971)
- SoundtracksMadeleine
Written by Jacques Brel, Gérard Jouannest and Jean Cortinovis
Performed by Performed by Françoise Simon, Joseph Neil, Annette Perrone, Judy Lander and Shawn Elliott
Featured review
A powerful singing performance in a poor cinematic package
I have been a Brel fan for many years and it so happened that I never had the chance to see Brel translated in English. I am glad that I found this DVD at the library and I enjoyed most of it. I have read some criticism here on the cinematography, and I fully agree with it. In particular, my criticism is on the voice synchronization. It is very rare to find such poor technical quality in movie, but in this case I do bear in mind that this was play before it was a movie. I am very familiar with the French originals and I was impressed by Mort Shuman's lyrics, and by the powerful performance of Elly Stone. IN particular I found the interpretation of (the very difficult) "Marike" very impressive, in particular since part of it was in (very well pronounced) Flemish. I liked Brel's performance of course, but I would have expected translation subtitles, since the rest of the songs were in English. As a movie, this DVD is unwatchable and I fell asleep watching it. However, after waking up, I listened carefully to the music and the lyrics and realized that this was a very talented crew, but the filming was amateurish. In part this was deliberate, but overall I am sure a remake of this movie as a series of new music videos would be well received by Brel enthusiasts like myself. My rank of 5 is an average of Music 9 and Cinematography 1.
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Jacques Brel él, jól van és Párizsban lakik
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- CA$850,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 38 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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Top Gap
By what name was Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (1975) officially released in Canada in English?
Answer