From the slums of Paris to the limelight of New York, Edith Piaf's life was a battle to sing and survive, live and love. Raised in poverty, Edith's magical voice and her passionate romances and friendships with the greatest names of the period--Yves Montand, Jean Cocteau, Charles Aznavour, Marlene Dietrich, Marcel Cerdan and others--made her a star all around the world. But in her audacious attempt to tame her tragic destiny, the Little Sparrow--her nickname--flew so high she could not fail to burn her wings.
Edith Piaf story is rousing, if not real Her real name wasn't Edith Piaf, but the invented surname means "sparrow," and it fit the myth of the little songbird who rose from the Paris gutters. The musical biopic "La Vie en Rose" is so steeped in the myth of Piaf, the most-beloved French entertainer of the 20th century, that inconvenient realities like the Nazi occupation are virtually drowned out. A tour de force performance by Marion Cotillard makes this long and turbulent film a rousing experience if not a reliable biography.
In this version of events, young Edith is abandoned by her acrobat father to be raised by her prostitute grandmother in a raucous brothel. A temporary bout of blindness and a visitation from St. Theresa set a fitful pattern for this time-twisted narrative, which bounces from barroom degradation to concert-hall adulation, and from morphine dependency to a delirious affair with married, middleweight boxing champion Marcel Cerdan (Jean-Pierre Martins).
Olivier Dahan's direction echoes the pitch of Piaf's music, which was impassioned to the point of melodrama, like that of kindred casualty Judy Garland. Cotillard lip-syncs skillfully but she channels the spirit of the songs through her tiny frame as Piaf goes from a plucky street urchin to premature decrepitude and death at age 47. Even as she dwindled, Piaf's music remained powerful, and if enduring a mythologized image of self-destruction is the price we must pay to hear those songs, c'est la vie.
At the Hi-Pointe.) From the slums of Paris to the limelight of New York, Edith Piaf's life was a battle to sing and survive, live and love. 49.
2182- From the slums of Paris to the limelight of New York, Edith Piaf's life was a battle to sing and survive, live and love. Raised in poverty, Edith's magical voice and her passionate romances and friendships with the greatest names of the period--Yves Montand, Jean Cocteau, Charles Aznavour, Marlene Dietrich, Marcel Cerdan and others--made her a star all around the world. But in her audacious attempt to tame her tragic destiny, the Little Sparrow--her nickname--flew so high she could not fail to burn her wings.
Edith Piaf story is rousing, if not real Her real name wasn't Edith Piaf, but the invented surname means "sparrow," and it fit the myth of the little songbird who rose from the Paris gutters. The musical biopic "La Vie en Rose" is so steeped in the myth of Piaf, the most-beloved French entertainer of the 20th century, that inconvenient realities like the Nazi occupation are virtually drowned out. A tour de force performance by Marion Cotillard makes this long and turbulent film a rousing experience if not a reliable biography.
In this version of events, young Edith is abandoned by her acrobat father to be raised by her prostitute grandmother in a raucous brothel. A temporary bout of blindness and a visitation from St. Theresa set a fitful pattern for this time-twisted narrative, which bounces from barroom degradation to concert-hall adulation, and from morphine dependency to a delirious affair with married, middleweight boxing champion Marcel Cerdan (Jean-Pierre Martins).
Olivier Dahan's direction echoes the pitch of Piaf's music, which was impassioned to the point of melodrama, like that of kindred casualty Judy Garland. Cotillard lip-syncs skillfully but she channels the spirit of the songs through her tiny frame as Piaf goes from a plucky street urchin to premature decrepitude and death at age 47. Even as she dwindled, Piaf's music remained powerful, and if enduring a mythologized image of self-destruction is the price we must pay to hear those songs, c'est la vie.
At the Hi-Pointe.) From the slums of Paris to the limelight of New York, Edith Piaf's life was a battle to sing and survive, live and love.
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