Le Grand Chapiteau: Télémajik

"You can never translate to film the feeling you get when you're in the big top," Dragone comments on the track, "It's a different kind of relationship." Because of the way Dragone directed the show, with its multiple layers of imagery (there's always more than one thing going on at any one time), "the spectator is the real writer of the live show. He builds his own show" by where he looks.

He also postulates the idea of having a smaller theater set up next to the Alegria show tent, holding perhaps 200 people that would screen the film as part of an entire Alegria experience. Wrangling 1500 audience extras (and at one point 1500 children extras) was only one of the filming complications. Most of the film occurs at night, and was filmed after regular daily performance of Alegria The Show while it was in Berlin, featuring many of the performers in the show. The performers would finish their show(s) and then spend most of the night appearing as their characters in the film. Dragone considers the finished film as a tribute to the (very tired) artists that perform daily in the show.

Dragone reveals in the commentary that after seeing children selling flowers in Belgium, and hearing their tales of servitude, he was inspired to illustrate their plight as an aspect of the film. The films' children sell flowers in The Cauldron which was based on Amsterdam's red-light district. But he had to be careful in depicting their story, "It's not easy to show misery on screen. You have to be careful not to be cute and beautiful."

The film studio was insistent that the film be a love story, and Franco was insistent that Rene Bazinet play the lead as Franco had promised him years before. But Rene wasn't as young as his co-star, and couldn't "play young." So the films concept was changed from a more realistic tone to be played more as a "modern urban fable." This allowed Bazinet to keep his whiteface makeup on (the story was that Frac had had it tattooed to his face) and appear younger. Being trained as a mime also presented Bazinet problems on screen; he had to tone down many aspects of his performance for the cameras. "It's hard to make a mime talk," Dragone quips on the track.

Frac hangs out at the "Café Opera" bar inhabited by older performers. The bar owner (Old Taps) is played by Brian Dewhurst, another long-time Cirque clown. Franco wanted the ambiance of the bar to be "happy yet sad at the same time, fantastic." He considered the characters that inhabit the bar to be birds (carrying over the "Old Birds" characters from the show), "They're dressed like birds, they behave like birds, they kiss, they whistle like birds."

Giuliette is the daughter of Cirque owner Fleur, played by international star Frank Langella. He was an easy casting choice, but had to be coaxed in his performance as the show-character Fleur. Langella was scared to play the character too over the top, until Dragone assured him that in Comedie d'Arte, which is where Fleur originates, that would be just perfect.