Petula Clark – Live At The Paris Olympia
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: C Concert: B-
Several Petula Clark concerts have reached DVD by this
point, some of which we have covered, but Live At The Paris Olympia was
taped September 23rd, 2003 and offers an unusual angle: she speaks
and sings much of the concert in French.
This may seem unusual and disorienting at first, but it is a stronger
concert than some we have already looked at and a sort of personal comeback
artistically, no doubt inspired by her love of France. The songs are:
1) I’m Not
Afraid
2) Un
Enfant
3) Look To
The Rainbow (from Coppola’s musical film Finian’s Rainbow)
4) You
& I
5) Que Fais
– Tu La Petula?
6) Don’t
Sleep In The Subway
7) This Is
My Song
8) If I Had
You/Just You Just Me
9) La
Chanson De Gainsbourg/Oh Sheriff/La Gadoue
10) La Nuit N’on Finit Plus
(Needles & Pins)
11) Tell Me It’s Not True (from Blood
Brothers)
12) With One Look (from Sunset
Boulevard)
13) Vivre (from Notre Dame De Paris)
14) I Know A Place
15) A Sign Of The Times
16) Downtown
17) Here For You
18) Kiss Me Goodbye
19) I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love
The playlist is mixed if by no other reason than I do not
know what she is singing in French and subtitles really do not always cut it
just the same. Nevertheless, something
comes out of her performance here we have not seen in the hours of footage
viewed previously. For that reason
alone, you might want to see the concert no matter the language barrier,
assuming you do not know French. There
are enough good moments that make this worth a look.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image was shot on
tape, likely some kind of digital High Definition, but this is dark throughout
and shadows are not resolved as well as one would like. The Dolby Digital is available in 2.0 Stereo
with Pro Logic surrounds and a better 5.1 mix that is decent, though I wondered
if DTS would have revealed more. Too
bad we’ll never know. Extras include a
booklet with an essay about Clark by the great lyricist Don Black and a 24
minutes backstage documentary featurette on the DVD itself, making this even
more of a collector’s item for fans.
The packaging is nice too.
- Nicholas Sheffo
