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Customer Reviews of Jacques Brel: Comme quand on etait beau

And some of the singing is breathtaking, indescribably brilliant. To mention just one track, the intensity of Ne me quitte pas at the opening of volume 3 is completely devastating. Here is a poet and performer teetering on the edge of madness and despair. It rips you apart.

Unreservedly recommended (though a literal English subtitling of the lyrics would add to the pleasure.)

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I don't know... I think Jacques Brel was as good as anyone, but the sheer volume of performances included in this collection becomes monotonous after two or three hours. My advice to others is that you should take your time with this thing - watch it in pieces - and you'll get more out of it.

Having said that, it still pleases me to no end that I now own virtually every piece of moving footage taken of Brel (and so will you). Culturally, he was every bit the Euro-Dylan - a young, socially-aware, middle-class songwriter of original compositions whose voice at first stood in the way of his success, then defined it. Brel preceded Dylan though, and as the interviews included in this set attest, Brel was much more genuine and level-headed than Dylan, and his songs were 100% life experience whereas Dylan liked to play with myth and image. How Brel ended up in a tailored suit playing supper clubs and variety shows while Dylan wheezed with blue jeans and harmonica in coffee houses is simply evidence of the contrast in taste between America and Europe, not as a contrast in artistic preference between Brel and Dylan. Both continents have their own histories and the two songwriters both embodied their respective continent's essence, both historically and in the moment, using the past to explain the present and future.

Being an American, I've grown de-sensitized to the coffee house folkie scenes and the various DIY underground rock scenes that any 'relevant' artist must pass through to attain critical success. Brel is different to me. I can't think of any American precedents or interesting followers - at least no white ones. None who went on stage every night in a three-piece singing gutter songs to affluent adults and beatnik youngsters alike, spitting and sweating in front of the most vanilla of musical accompaniment. Leonard Cohen is perhaps the closest, but he came from Canada, a country with a high French population, and Cohen has never been the performer Brel was. Scott Walker wanted to be the next Brel, but he never learned of Brel until he moved to Europe and he hasn't come back. Nick Cave is boring, and both his and Walker's visions are or were clearly knowledgeable of Brel. So we come back to Brel, who does indeed have European precendents, but Americans are 98% ignorant of them and none of those performers have seven hours of DVD footage devoted to them for me to critique and never will because of the technology of their time.

About two-thirds of the material on this collection is made up of staged variety show performances, and though the songs are performed respectably, I found myself expecting more from a visual representation of them. The rest of the material is non-scripted live performances and interviews, and these are by far the most exciting to me. The interviews are all at least interesting, and some are quite revealing and introspective. Brel sometimes appears agitated by the interviewer but he never loses his temper and he treats them all with respect and dignity and I respect that about him - perhaps because I could not do the same. It also seems to me that the press in Europe were more intelligent and aware than their American peers at the time. The two strongest performance sequences are the 1963 'Bruxelles'/'La statue'/'La Fanette'/'La pendu'/'Les fenetres' perfomance at the Club Domino on disc 2 and the 1965 'La Fanette'/'Les vieux'/'Les bonbons'/'Les bigotes'/'Le plat pays'/'Madeleine' performance on disc 3. That 1965 performance is everything I ever expected to see on this collection and more. It's the one performance on the collection in which he doesn't seem to know he's on tape and he really looks like he's in his element. His physical gestures are more exaggerated and his sense of theater is in full flight. He turns from a tyrant into a child at the snap of a finger and then back again. Sometimes he borders on a vaudeville act but it's all great, especially 'Les bonbons' - in fact all his performances of 'Les bonbons' throughout the collection are winners. He seems to have used that song as his crowd-pleaser and show-stopper while 'Madeleine' was his 'theme' which his band would play as an intro and outro to all his performances.

There are a handful of clips dispersed throughout the three discs of home-made color videos set to music of Brel and his worldly adventures in the 1970s after he retired from performing and became ill. I don't like them. They may mean something to his friends and family but not to the fan.

This collection is the definition of comprehensive and it portrays not just the artist but his time, making it a valuable historical document.

Spellbinding!! 7 1/2 Hours of Jacques Brel is not Enough
For people who can't get enough of Jacques Brel this three DVD Box set is not enough. Only four different versions of "Ne me Quitte Pas", four of "Madeleine", three each of "L'Ivrogne", "Ces Gens La," " Mathilde," two each of "Rosa", "Les Bonbons," "La Valse à Mille Temps" "Les Paumés de Petit Matin" , "Le Plat Pays" and "Chanson de Jacky."
So, viewing a lot of these together, almost all in black and white, does leave one wishing for more variety. Brel was not big on improvisation. More like a classical musician than a jazz artist, once he decided on the words of a song and their accompanying gestures, that was it. Yet he poured so much of his own fire into each performance it seemed fresh and full each time.
Then 5 1/2 stars for the impeccable Jacques Brel and 4 stars for the people who put this set together, givng us so many repetitions and English subtitles for the interviews but not for the songs. While many of us English speakers stumble along in French Jacques runs and flies. While much can be lost in translation, even more can be lost in lack of translation. It is impossible to know Brel without understanding his words. Here's hoping that the next 7 1/2 hours comes complete with subtitles as good as the ones in the interviews. Thanks to these we can catch such lines we may otherwise have missed like:
"A head gets hit so many times before it stays on your shoulders."
"A saint is a fool who went to mass."
"Girls hope to meet Prince Charming. Princes are not charming."
So many surprises on these discs! The late '60s videos of "Regarde bien Petit" and "L'Eclusier", "Vesoul" "Je suis un Soir d'Ete" primitive and contrived, but it's still great to see Jacques lip-synching these songs. In color, photo collages by Jacques' daughter France Brel to the unpublished 1977 songs give us lots of ocean and sailing, a refreshing change from the concert hall and lights of the T.V. cameras. Jacques films are referred to with musical excerpts from "Mon Oncle Benjamin", and "Franz" with Barbara is the background for "L'Amour est Mort." An extract from "Le Far West" gives us the beautiful song "L' Enfance"
Most interesting is the depth, honesty and liveliness of Jacques in interview. We see him creating songs like "Les Singes" and "Quand Maman Reviendra" , retiring from music hall side by side with a retiring champion athelete, riding in a car, eating, performing "Mon Enfance" complete with admitted mistakes 36 hours after its creation, and at his home in Belgium.
We see him in cabarets in the late 1950's, the audience perplexed, disturbed but entranced. Some smile knowingly, others remain stiff, amazed. We see him with bonbons in his hand, in a toreador costume, with a rope around his neck singing "Le Pendu." Though there is some overlap with other Brel videos most of the material is new , nowhere else to be found.
For instance, the magical film short "Brel à Montmartre" made in 1961, exactly the year Dylan came to Greenwich Village. Young Brel, Montmartre in the Spring-- Magnifique!
The last disc ends with a reading of 'Pierre et le Loup". With Jacques at the height of his handsomeness combining boyish charm with rakish sex appeal it's hard to know whether he's Peter or the wolf.
For the fans of grand Jacques, the lovers of chanson, English speaking francophiles or students of French, for singer-songwriters everywhere this set is a gem.
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