MovieChat Forums > L'emmerdeur (1975) Discussion > A Belgian Joke or a trap for Monsieur Br...

A Belgian Joke or a trap for Monsieur Brel?

posted 18 years ago by SixtusXLIV
2 replies | jump to latest

I can't understand why Jacques Brel, a great master of the "chanson à texte" (one in which the words carry more mening than the music), and was very much a French Speciality (with Piaf, Brassens and Montand, not to forget "Roger la Branlette").

Brell was born is Brussels, but made most of his artistic life in France.

I believe he was lured by a French Producer and Director to play a "dumb Belgian". The French have many anedoctes in which a "Belgian" plays the fool.

The self-called "cultural superiority" of the French is gone. They should apologize and honour the foreigners like Brel, and Montand.

As for the Belgians, I can testify that they are quite smart.. THey just happen to speak a bit slowly. I lived ther over 7 years.

If you consider this, in a correct perpective, it allows a bit more time to think before you say nonsense...

[–] troppe 15 years ago

Hi,
1. Brel doesn't play a Belgian in this movie. So how can it be a Belgian joke? Brel was respected in France btw. He would never have been 'lured' into anything.
2. 60% of the Belgians speak Dutch (Flemish) and not French. You should know that if you've lived in Belgium. The French speaking Belgians do not speak 'a bit slowly', it's the French speaking Swiss that talk 'a bit slowly'.

[–] tgiov72-965-4546 10 years ago

In this case, french prejudice against Italians would see them as cool, hard boiled people like Lino Ventura. Never heard of that cliché before.