La Vie en rose (film)

La Vie en Rose
Directed by Olivier Dahan
Produced by Alain Goldman
Written by Isabelle Sobelman
Olivier Dahan
Starring Marion Cotillard
Gérard Depardieu
Sylvie Testud
Music by Christopher Gunning
Édith Piaf
Cinematography Tetsuo Nagata
Editing by Richard Marizy
Studio Légende Films
Distributed by Picturehouse (USA)
Release date(s) February 8, 2007 (2007-02-08) (Berlin)
February 14, 2007 (2007-02-14) (France)
May 31, 2007 (2007-05-31) (Czech Republic)
June 22, 2007 (2007-06-22) (United Kingdom)
Running time 140 minutes
Country France
Czech Republic
United Kingdom
Language French
English
Budget $25,000,000
Gross revenue $81,945,871

La Vie en Rose (French pronunciation: [la vi ɑ̃ ʁoz], literally Life in Pink; released in France as La Môme, referring to Piaf's nickname "La Môme Piaf," meaning "The Little Sparrow") is a 2007 French/Czech/British biographical drama film directed by Cesar Award nominee Olivier Dahan, about the life of the legendary French chanteuse Édith Piaf, and is named after her signature song. The film won five Césars, including one for Best Actress, and Marion Cotillard won an Academy Award for her performance, marking the first time an Oscar had been given for a French-language role. She is also the first French actress to win a Comedy or Musical Golden Globe for a foreign language role. It also became the first French film to win more than one Oscar; the other being for Makeup.

Contents

Plot

The film presents a fractured and largely non-linear series of key events from the life of Édith Piaf. Although scenes often jump back and forth across decades (evoked as flashbacks mostly from within Edith's memories), parts of her childhood take up much of the first part, and the movie ends with her death, and the performance of her song, "Non, je ne regrette rien" (No, I regret nothing).

As a small child in 1918, Edith Piaf is crying on a stoop, near some other children on the streets of Paris. Her mother stands across the alley singing, panhandling for change. Edith's mother writes a letter to her child's father, the acrobat, who is in the trenches of World War I. She explains that she's dropping Edith off at her mother's so she can pursue the life of the artist. Her father returns to Paris and scoops up Edith, covered in insect bites and sores, from under the blanket of a bed in a dilapidated house. He drops her off at his mother's, who is a madam of a bordello in Normandy. There, Edith is adopted informally by Titine, a young troubled redhead who sings to Edith, plays with her, and walks the streets of their small town. Titine and another prostitute care for Edith; they are repeatedly demeaned and abused by brothel customers.

Several years after the end of the war, Edith's father returns and takes Edith to live with him, despite anguished protests by Titine, who must be held back while he bundles Edith into a cart. Her father works in the circus as an acrobat. One night, as Édith is outside cleaning up after dinner at night, she stops to watch a fire eater practising and in the flames sees an apparition of St Thérèse, who assures her that she will always be with her - a belief that Édith carries with her for the rest of her life. When Edith is ten years old, her father leaves the company after an argument with the manager and begins performing on the streets of Paris. At one point a passerby asks if Edith is part of the show, and with prompting by her father to "do something," she sings La Marseillaise with great emotion and yearning. More crowds gather around her and are obviously moved.

Years later, Edith makes a friend from a factory job, Mômone, and they wander the streets, drinking from a bottle of wine, and Edith occasionally sings for their supper. Singing on the street in Montmartre, a nightclub owner named Louis Leplée approaches her and introduces himself. Impressed with her singing, Leplée changes her name to Piaf, a colloquialism for sparrow, because her original name is too long and off-putting.

Afterwards, Leplee is shot dead, and many think Edith's connections to the mafia, namely, the pimp Albert, causes his murder. She is interviewed by the police, but is not charged. She tries to sing at a low grade cabaret with Albert accompanying on accordion, but she is shouted off the stage.

In utter despair, Edith finally meets up with her next savior- Raymond Asso, a talented songwriter and accompanist. He discovers her "great hands," and teaches her to gesture with them while singing. He also emphasizes enunciation, formal wear and comportment. Before their first concert at a music hall, "Not a cabaret," the manager intones, she has a fierce bout of stage fright and is huddled in the dark in her dressing room, thirty minutes after curtain call. He advises her finally to "stand up," and she manages to shake off this fright. This performance is a resounding success.

Edith next travels to New York City for more performances. She meets Marcel Cerdan, a fellow French national boxer competing for the World Champion title abroad. They first dine at his "local spot" a diner where she gets a pint of beer and a pastrami sandwich. She teases him that this is not a date, and they end up at a very fancy restaurant, where she orders the wine and entrees. He reveals that he has a pig farm, to which Edith laughs very loudly. Marcel tells her that, while he's away, the farm is run by his wife. Edith is speechless, but is quickly falling in love, as she reveals to Mômone that night. Marcel later attends her performance of La Vie En Rose, after which they meet Marlene Dietrich, who reveals that Edith's singing made her cry. That night, Marcel and Edith are led through a fire escape of Edith's hotel, where she states, "I'm starting to like this city, the stars are out tonight". They spend their first night together.

The next morning Edith wakes up to Marcel, who is in a suit lounging on her bed. She rushes off to get him coffee, joking with Mômone and Louis who are subdued, standing in the suite in different rooms. She rushes off to get Marcel's present, a watch, and gets irritated that she can't find it. Ginou comes to the door with a very sad expression. Exasperated, Edith asks what is wrong with everyone. Louis, her manager, takes her aside and tells her that Marcel's plane crashed. Edith hysterically searches for the ghost of Marcel that was lounging on her bed just a moment before.

There are many flash forwards to a small aged-looking Edith with frizzy red hair, sitting in a chair by the lakeside. She can barely move, and fights with her nurse about drinking carrot juice. Another set of flash forwards depict Edith with short curly hair, plastered to her face like she is feverish, singing on stage and collapsing every other song. She is taken back to her green room, only to be yelled at by Lou In another flash forward, Edith is hosting a large party at a Parisian bistro. She toasts to Marguerite who saw her "as a princess," before anyone else did. She flirts with the waiter, and topples a bottle of champagne, not due to drunkenness, but her arthritis. She finally sees the owner of the restaurant and implores him to get her a gift. She asks for a ring, with tons of diamonds on it. Louis quietly tells him to simply replace the champagne she spilled. The next morning Louis opens her bedroom door to a small Edith on the large bed, with curtains drawn. He offers her breakfast but she tells him no, she is expecting someone. A young man comes in the room and lounges on her bed. Louis leaves, sitting outside the door. Time passes and he re-enters the room. Five or so bloody syringes are on the bed and both Edith and her young man are lying there with their eyes open, in relatively the same position.

After her first convalescence, she travels to California with her husband Jacques Pills and drives around with Ginou and some others in a car. Ginou is car sick and Edith takes the small break as an opportunity to drive the car, which she does, straight into a cactus. She jokes that she will now have to hitchhike.

She sits with Jacques at the side of a pool and is offered a strange fruity martini drink. She wonders if he will divorce her now. In the next scene, they are at a doctor's office, in America. She explained that she has been using drugs since the plane crash. Before the doctor can tell her how the shots have been affecting her health, her husband says he wants her to go into rehab. Five years after this event, a small, frail, hunched Edith slowly pads into her living room. Her entourage is crowded, concerned, on the other side of the room. She determines that it is impossible, for obvious reasons, to perform at the Olympia. Her long-time arranger Bruno Coquatrix is told to cancel the show. A new songwriter and arranger shows up with a song, "Je ne regrette rien", and Edith exclaims: "You're marvellous! Exactly what I've been waiting for. It's incredible. It's me! That's my life, it's me". She tells Bruno that she will perform it at the Olympia.

She sits in her dressing room and searches for her cross that she always wears. She sends her maid and secretary out to get it, and at that point has a series of flashbacks. When she returns with the cross, Edith places it on and shuffles out onto the stage. She begins singing "Je ne regrette rien," to more flashbacks:

A sunny day in the United States. She walks out to the beach with her knitting. This is a smaller, red-haired Edith with an obvious stoop. She waves at the lifeguard and sits near the breakers. A young woman with a purse and bag approaches and introduces herself. She is there for an interview. She asks Edith simple questions: what is her favorite color? (blue), her favorite food? (pot roast). And then more questions. If you were to give advice to a woman, what would it be? "Love." To a young girl? "Love". To a child? "Love".

Louis carries a bundled up Edith into her bedroom and tucks her into bed. The subtitle reads that this is the date of her death. She is afraid. She says she cannot remember things. She flashes back to small moments, her mother recognizing that they have similar features, but odd eyes. Her father giving her a Japanese doll that she longed for. From the years when she was a street performer, she remembers her child, Marcelle, that daughter of Louis Dupont. She remembers how he yelled at her for taking Marcelle out on the street. She was singing in a cabaret when Dupont came to tell her Marcelle was in the hospital. They arrive, and Marcelle has already died of meningitis.

In the last scene of the film, Edith performs her debut of "Je ne regrette rien" at the Olympia.

Cast

Production

Box office performance

In theaters, the film grossed US$81,945,871 worldwide - $10,072,300 in the United States and Canada and $71,873,571 elsewhere in the world.[1] In Francophone countries including Algeria, Monaco, Morocco and Tunisia, the film grossed a total of $42,014,775.[2]

This film became the third-highest-grossing French-language film in the United States in the last two decades (behind Amélie and Brotherhood of the Wolf). [1]

Critical reception

The film received generally favorable reviews from critics. As of July 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 75% of the 135 critics to view the film had given it positive reviews.[3] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 66 out of 100, based on 29 reviews.[4] In particular, critics praised the lifelike and deeply emotional performance of lead actress Marion Cotillard, culminating in her Oscar win for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Critic A.O Scott of The New York Times, while unimpressed with the film itself, was still rather impressed with Cotillard's performance: "It is hard not to admire Ms. Cotillard for the discipline and ferocity she brings to the role."[5] Carino Chocano of the Los Angeles Times opined that "Marion Cotillard is astonishing as the troubled singer in a technically virtuosic and emotionally resonant performance..." Richard Nilsen from Arizona Republic was even more enthusiastic, writing "don't bother voting. Just give the Oscar to Marion Cotillard now. As the chanteuse Édith Piaf in La Vie en rose, her acting is the most astonishing I've seen in years."[3]

Awards

Marion Cotillard won seven Best Actress Awards for her portrayal of Édith Piaf in La Vie en Rose:

Other awards include:

References

  1. ↑ "La Vie en rose (2007)". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&id=lavieenrose.htm. Retrieved 2008-02-16. 
  2. ↑ "La Vie en rose (2007) - International Box Office Results". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=intl&id=lavieenrose.htm. Retrieved 2008-01-13. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "La Vie en rose - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/la_vie_en_rose/. Retrieved 2008-07-31. 
  4. ↑ "La Vie en rose (2007): Reviews". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/lavieenrose. Retrieved 2008-01-13. 
  5. ↑ "La Vie en rose: A French Songbird’s Life, in Chronological Disorder". The New York Times. June 8, 2007. Retrieved February 27, 2008.

External links