"La Vie en Rose" is the name of her signature song and of director Olivier Dahan's terrific film biography at hand. Marion Cotillard is the name of the terrific actress who brings the charismatic chanteuse to life. Early scenes establish her as the sickly ragamuffin daughter of a street singer and a circus contortionist.
Abandoned by them, she grows up in a Normandy brothel run by her grandmother. Childhood diseases make her blind, until miraculously "cured" by Saint Therese. One of the prostitutes (Emmanuelle Seigner) takes loving care of her, but the prodigal father returns to snatch her away and put her to work in his sidewalk act.
There, she is discovered by impresario Louis Leplee (Gerard Depardieu), who gives Edith her first break and the name "Piaf" -- sparrow -- reflecting her diminutive size. Indeed, she had a huge voice for such a tiny (4-foot, 8-inch) creature. Tutored to improve her diction and convey the emotional message of lyrics, she invented an electric, wildly popular style all her own.
Piaf's powerful will to survive (and compulsion to sing) in the face of self-destructive impulses makes Judy Garland's similar struggle pale by comparison. The parallels are striking: a gift-of-God voice, childhood exploitation, unhappy love affairs, addiction to drugs and alcohol. Their songs revolved around their lives, and vice versa.
Both grew old prematurely and died at 47. Cotillard -- with her huge, wide, wondering, terrified eyes -- turns in a magnificent performance, alternately vulnerable and lovable, drunk and demanding. The scene in which she learns that her champion boxer-lover Marcel Cerdan (Jean-Pierre Martins) has been killed in a plane crash will leave you devastated.
Above all, she is a superb mime and lip-syncher. (Most of the singing is by Piaf herself, some by Cotillard). The face, like the voice, seems always just on the edge of tears.
At nearly 2 1/2 hours, "La Vie en Rose" is overlong but beautifully evokes the woman and the era, despite its jumpy flashbacks and flash-forwards. A special bonus is the subtitles, asymmetrically overlaid on dark parts of the screen -- a long overdue innovation! Cotillard deserves an Oscar nomination for many reasons, but particularly for her Piaf-in-decline: the painfully stoop-shouldered, arthritic walk, the frizzled thinning hair.
The makeup is extraordinarily brilliant. I never saw a more authentic or convincing aging process in my film-critical life. It's almost too good.
There's a great deal of collapsing and dying in the film. But don't let that stop you from seeing it. Edith's final song alone, "Non, je ne regrette rien" (I don't regret anything), is worth the price of admission.
Opens today at Manor Theater. (Post-Gazette film critic Barry Paris can be reached at parispg48@aol.com.
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. "La Vie en Rose" is the name of her signature song and of director Olivier Dahan's terrific film biography at hand.
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