2023-12-24 05:05:02
Amsterdam, Don’t leave me, Le flat pays… Jacques Brel’s songs have left their mark on generations. But did you know that? This Belgian did not plan to be a singer. He dreamed of being a surgeon or aviator, like Blériot. This is what his daughter, France Brel, recounts in the “Chronicle of a Life” which she devotes to him. The one who dedicates all her time to the memory of Grand Jacques reveals to us in the program “You are wonderful” three little-known aspects of her journey.
Very energetic and bubbly (she, in Flemish, she says “defying“), France Brel, the second of Jacques Brel’s three daughters, delivers anecdotes about the famous singer on the set of You are amazing on December 4, 2023. Director of the Brel Foundation, she devotes her life to the memory of her father, through films, conferences and books. She reveals little-known aspects of her father’s journey, who dreamed of being a surgeon or an aviator.
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In Chronicle of a lifeof which two volumes out of four planned have already been published, she recounts the destiny of her father, his family, but also the era he went through, the socio-political and cultural context… A true work of a historian which is worth being selected for the 2023 Trial Grand Prize, by theRoyal Academy of French Language and Literature of Belgium. The prize will be awarded on March 9, 2024.
“We cannot detach ourselves from our times, says France Brel. After the war, my father was a teenager who wanted to build peace. And he built this new world with songs.“But before launching into music, Jacques Brel had very different dreams. Discover three little-known aspects of his career.
duration of video: 00h13mn00s
France Brel talks about the Brel Foundation and the memories she has of her father, Jacques Brel, on Monday December 4, 2023 on the set of Vous sont formidables • ©FTV
“When I was a kid, I wanted to be a surgeon“, confided Jacques Brel later. But it is clear that others decided his future for him and that he had no say in the matter. In Jackyfirst volume of the Chronicle of a lifeFrance, who calls his father Jacques, writes: “Since Romain [son père] took him to visit the factory at the age of 11, Jacky knows that he will flourish behind his tiles even if sometimes he dreams of becoming a doctor, perhaps to treat all the sick mothers, like (. ..) Lisette [sa mère] unwell some days.”
One of the last photos (1974) of France Brel with her father, whom she called Jacques at his request. • © Jacques Brel Foundation
In a completely different genre, Jacques Brel’s model is Louis Blériot, first aviator to cross the Channel, 35 kilometers in 37 minutes, July 25, 1909. The singer, who read and wrote a lot, was passionate about Night flightby Saint-Exupéry, Fémina Prize 1931.
“Transported by this storyexplains France in Jacky, he has the impression of experiencing all the emotions of the pilots, of finding himself in the cabin alongside them, of being thrown around with them by the turbulence of the sudden storm and of being dazzled by the beauty of the sky. He is fascinated by the Aéropostale adventure, by these men who, risking their lives, try everything to deliver the expected mail.“
Jacques Brel will eventually realize his dream of becoming a pilot. A photo of him with his plane also serves as the album cover for a compilation released in 2013.I would never have been a singer if I could have been Blériothe sometimes confided. When I’m not singing, I’m flying, or dreaming about it.”
Cover of the complete Brel 21 CD, “Follow the Star”, released in 2013. • © Disques Barclay
If Jacques Brel was good at poetry and regularly first in elocution, he liked mathematics much less. He repeated a year in 1945 and at the beginning of July 1946, he finished his fourth year of studies in ninth place out of 28 students. But at the following school year, Jacques was bored, abandoned his studies to devote himself to the one he then called his muse, Suzanne, to writing and to hiking with friends he met during the summer.
“L’adolescentdetails France Brel in Jacky, strides away from his meager motivation to study, knowing full well where the end of his studies will lead him: alongside his father, behind a desk to live a dreary life sheltered from the high walls of the cardboard factory.”
On December 20, 1946, he was dismissed from theSaint-Louis institute for lack of work and ends up in the sales department of his father’s cardboard factory. He was led to join Franche Cordée, a mixed Catholic youth movement which only existed in Brussels between 1941 and 1955. Creation of a neighborhood newspaper, new friendships, meeting with Miche, who would become his wife. . For France, “that’s where it all begins“.
Jacques Brel recorded his very first song in 1953 and success came three years later with when we only have love. “This is the first time he completely let gosmiles France, and it changed his way of being afterwards.”
We will see Jacques Brel in several films at the cinema, from 1967 to 1973, but also on stage in the role of Don Quixote in The Man of La Mancha, of which he created the French version. But in addition to his acting roles, he is also a director.
To his credit, two feature films. First of all Franz, in 1971, in which he played alongside his friend Monique Andrée Serf, alias Barbara. And then The Wild West, in 1973, a poster that he shared with Danièle Evenou. “I believed that the Far West was still the great paradise for when I grew up, when my legs would go higherwill entrust Jacques Brel to Jacques Chancel in Fluoroscopy on France Inter the 21st of 1973. I dreamed of living in a Wild West somewhere.”
A true commercial failure, this last film marks the end of Brel’s cinematographic career.
Posters of films directed by Jacques Brel, “Franz” (1971) and “Le Far West” (1973) • © DR
Over the next 18 months, France Brel plans to write the third volume of the Chronicle of a life. At the same time, she must also shoot a third film, after I’m coming et The pacific, both of which are being screened at the Brel Foundation in Brussels. She also appears on the show A day with Brelpresented by Gaëtan Roussel, and which will be broadcast on France 3 on December 27, 2023 at 9:10 p.m.
“It’s really a great show.she rejoices, because there are a lot of artists, all generations combined. It’s not a tribute in the classical sense, it’s not sad, on the contrary. It’s even full of a joy that corresponds to Brelian values.”
“A day with Brel”
A program recorded in Brussels, on Portel beach, in Paris, Amsterdam or even at the Condition Publique in Roubaix, the city where Jacques Brel gave his last concert in 1967.
On the program, more than twenty artists like Thomas Dutronc, Alain Souchon, Louane, Kad Merad, Imany, Adamo, Enrico Macias, Dave, Mentissa, Stephan Eicher, Abd Al Malik, Camille Lellouche, Lio, Sofiane Pamart and many more others.
Also see in full on france.tv
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