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Whistle Stopper - La Vie en Rose (Extended Version)
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List Price: $27.95
Our Price: $17.75
Your Save: $ 10.20 ( 36% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Hbo Home Video
Starring: Marion Cotillard, Sylvie Testud, Pascal Greggory, Emmanuelle Seigner, Jean-Paul Rouve
Directed By: Olivier Dahan
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0026359441226
Format: AC-3
Label: Hbo Home Video
Manufacturer: Hbo Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Hbo Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2007-11-13
Running Time: 141
Studio: Hbo Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Gripping, must-see, unforgettable performance in a film too smart for its own good
Comment: It seems contradictory to praise a film for its star's performance while panning it for overly busy, manipulative editing. In the hands of a clever filmmaker-editor-scriptwriter, most of us could come off looking reasonably competent. But as will be clear even to those unfamiliar with Edith Piaf's life or music, Marion Cotillard gives perhaps the most impressive performance of the new millennium in the role of "The Little Sparrow."
Somehow she manages to stay a cut ahead of Olivier Dahan's overly slick and clever movie with her mercurial changes--one moment mousey and woebegone, the next an out-of-control feral cat on the attack; a Tomboyish and modest international star one moment, a demanding and self-destructive diva the next; a weathered and withered little scarecrow one instant, a noble and courageous heroine the next. Her body and facial language are equally expressive--both telling us the story of Edith Piaf less through script than sheer rhetoric of character.
Nevertheless, I'd recommend the viewer read a brief account of Edith Piaf's life (Wickipedia is pretty good) before watching the film. Besides moving his camera all over the place and violating temporal-spatial conventions, writer-director Dahan tends to embed flashbacks within flashbacks, requiring the viewer to keep four or more time periods simultaneously in mind, and he frequently cuts to a character about whose identity (in some cases, "reality") we remain clueless until much later in the sequence. Better to get the plot-story business out of the way lest it distract from Cotillard's extraordinary accomplishment.
Unfortunately, there's another reason to do a quick prep on Piaf's life and career before viewing film. Like the vast majority of biopics about musicians (Billie Holiday, Cole Porter, Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon immediately come to mind), the film fails not only to show us why Piaf's talent was so special but to showcase the songs in a manner that ensures they will be remembered and discovered by a new generation of listeners. The director appears to assume that, like "La Vie en Rose," every viewer will automatically respond to the strains of "Hymn l'Amour" and "Je Ne Regrette Rien."
Perhaps like a majority of the movie-going public, the filmmaker has little interest in, let alone knowledge about, Piaf's music. His Piaf, despite any testimony to the contrary, lives not solely for her art but for love. Numerous musicians have made sacrifices and paid prices similar to Piaf's--but it was for the music. Great artists have to be willing to die for their art, but that's not the message of this script. Fortunately, Cotillard's Piaf emerges as far more than another tragic heroine or sensationalized story about the fall of a star. But why are we so attracted to a figure who from the start is so undeniably unattractive? That's the question we continually ask ourselves, even as the resonance and magnetism of her character lead us ever closer to the only place we're likely to find an answer--her art.
The next move must be the spectator's.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Draggy and ultimately boring
Comment: I finally watched this after much anticipation. I was let down, but I shouldn't complain too hard.
Marion Cotillard is excellent, EXCELLENT as Edith Piaf. What disappointed me most was the draggy feeling throughout the movie. I realize this is a biopic, but I was expecting a movie on her life as the popular singer whose country roared to life for her. At her funeral, over 80,000 people were at the cemetery with 400,000 in the streets. I wanted to see how a small woman affected by booze and drugs was able to remain such a sweetheart for her countrymen.
I realize her life was tragic from her birth all the way to her death. I thought the movie did a great job emphasizing the tragedy as well as it did her popularity. However, it just went on and on and on and..... It was a big sigh of relief when the credits started to roll.
Customer Rating:
Summary: See it for Marion Cotillard's performance
Comment: My knowledge of Edith Piaf extends to a few of her songs played many times over the years on the local classical FM station's once a week show of folk and other music. I knew nothing of her life.
"La Vie En Rose" with its dizzying flashbacks and flashforwards and cutaways doesn't really tell me much I wanted to know about Piaf. She led a tragic life of abandonment as a child, alcoholism, drug addiction, cripping arthritis, several marriages, many lovers, a lost child and more. Her talent as a singer rescued her from the obscurity that otherwise would have been her fate.
Piaf was a magnificient singer. I have no idea of what the lyrics were in English, but in French just the sound of her voice was entrancing.
The saving graces of this film are Marion Cotillard's acting and the dubbing of Edith Piaf's voice. Cotillard's performance is spellbinding as Piaf ages from her 20's to her untimely death of liver cancer at 47.
The script and direction seem common. You could substitute Janis Joplin or Judy Garland and make practically the same film. The fast cut style with all the flashbacks, flashforwards and cutaways is dizzying and does little to provide any understanding of Piaf, the person. We see her as the chronically abused child and teen. Then the imperious, demanding success. And the regretful dying woman. Only once do we see Piaf reasonably happy - when she is having an affair with French boxer Marcel Cerdan, who will not leave his wife for Piaf. But don't worry - he dies in an airplane crash leaving Piaf/Cotillard with an opportunity for one of the best scenery eating scenes you've ever seen.
Having watched the movie, I don't think I have any greater understanding or knowledge of Edith Piaf than I had before - which wasn't much at all. In fact, the picture painted of Piaf in the movie is not of a pleasant person. But Cotillard's performance is superb and reason to watch the film.
Jerry
Customer Rating:
Summary: edith would be turning over in her grave
Comment: I wasn't too familiar with Edith Piaf before seeing this movie. I had heard of her only because she's featured in one of my favorite books, Legends: The Century's Most Unforgettable Faces. After seeing this movie, I'm still not that interested in her and here's why:
Her character is annoying. I think Marion Cotillard won an Oscar because she got Edith Piaf's mannerisms, voice and behavior down to a science but that doesn't mean that the ACTUAL performance is Oscar-worthy. Edith Piaf is a drunk, clumsy, alcoholic lush that literally gets slapped into being a singer (and by halfway through the movie, I wanted to slap her and I'm a woman!).
The problem is that the character development, like the movie is choppy.
By the time the movie really shows who she is at a certain age, the frames change and then we see her at a completely different age. Instead of growing up with her onscreen, like in better biographical movies like Elvis (the one with Camryn Manheim), Ray (based on the life of Ray Charles) and Evita (which won Madonna a well-deserved Golden Globe), the movie can't decide if we should watch her die, watch her grow up or watch her act up.
Another problem that I had is that too little screen time is given to the death of her child, her only child, that she's loses in the '30's when she is only 20 years old. At the very end, she mourns for the child and I actually felt sorry for her. If the movie had introduced this important part of the story sooner, I might not have sat there for an hour and thirty minutes wondering why she was an alcoholic but for her being abandoned by her mother.
Unfortunately, the movie treats the relationship between mother and daughter like a scene out of a cheesy Lifetime movie and only reunites them for a few minutes. Practically all of her relationships are left unresolved and I don't know if that's realistic but it doesn't make for a great movie.
The legendary comebacks she supposedly made should have been treated with more dignity but because of the movie's choppy direction, you never really get the full effect. Some movies are able to do the whole flashback thing and still tell a story. I thought I was watching character sketches on Edith Piaf and not an actual movie.
For me, this movie was like eating chicken noodle soup without the chicken or noodles. It had all the right ingredients but just didn't know how to put them together.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Performance but...........
Comment: Marion Cotillard delivers a stunning performance as the great Edith Piaf. She becomes Piaf. Christie Laume, sister of Theo Sarapo, Edith's husband when she passed away in 1963, says on her weblog, Marion captured Piaf sowell; the way she walked, talked, her very character. Being a long time Piaf fan, I was looking forward to seeing this movie. I must say that despite the realism that the director and Cotillard brought to the screen, I was rather disappointed by the focus being primarily on the pain and suffering that was surely part of Piaf's life. In that way the film is rather one dimensional. I was also frustrated by the non-linear chronology; starting out in her final years and moving to her childhood, the film jumps randomly to various periods throughout her life, culminating on her deathbed in 1963. Missing from the story is her stage and movie career, life during Nazi occupied Paris, and marriage to her 2nd husband Theo Sarapo, who was 23 years her junior and which caused quite a stir at the time, it is a story in itself. Although the marriage was only to last a year, she and Theo were happy and the director was looking to show Piaf as miserable, so it didn't fit. That is what disappointed me most, the focus on misery.
The depth of her character is not really explored. She is portrayed as an obnoxious drunk and drug addict who has a passion for singing. She definitely had a drug and alcohol problem and was difficult at times. These are the human frailties and shortcomings that many of us have, but surely there must have been more to her character. When one listens to Edith's recordings and sees her performances (youtube Piaf) one gets the sense and depth of the true artist that she was. She was absolutely one of the greatest singers and performance artists ever. Plain looking, she would become radiantly beautiful during her performances, her face, her hands, her body, would convey joy, sorrow, love and sensuality, she would be carried away by the music and would take the audience along with her.
She was an excellent vocal musician and had a fantastic dynamic range. The power of her voice considering her diminutive size was amazing. Her composers wrote songs with key changes that would be challenging for the average singer. "A quoi ca c'est l'amour" written by Michel Emer for her and husband Theo Sarapo, who performed the number with her, goes through 6 chromatic key changes, the key changing by a half step after each verse starting in Bmaj and ending in Emaj at the final verse. Her timing was impeccable. She mentored and helped launch the careers of Theo, Charles Aznavour and Yves Montand. She collaborated with her composers and wrote the lyrics to La Vie en Rose. This is the work of a dedicated hardworking musician. These dimensions are lacking in this film. I think Edith is deserving of a better treatment than the one she gets in this movie.
Still, I enjoyed the movie and was just amazed by the talent of Marion Cotillard. She has earned a well deserved Oscar as best actress.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Edith Piaf is the subject of La Vie en Rose, director Olivier Dahan's powerful if emotionally redundant biographical film about the iconic French superstar whose life, as depicted here, seems to have been a numbing succession of tragedies interrupted on occasion by artistic triumph. Dahan's portrait begins with Piaf's stay in a brothel as a young girl. Left to the care of her grandmother (who runs the place) after her father pulls her away from a narcissistic mother, Piaf undergoes significant health problems and grows up to sing on the street in lieu of outright prostitution. The film pulses along with the usual biopic rhythms, with pivotal moments in the life of Piaf (played as an adult by Marion Cotillard) turning up regularly only to be smacked aside by the unseen hand of perpetual misfortune. There's the impresario (Gerard Depardieu) who recognizes Piaf's great but raw talent only to have a run-in with the criminal element around her. There's the heavyweight fighter (Marcel Cerdan) who becomes the love of Piaf's life but can't be with her. Drug addiction, random car accidents, tax problems, you name it, it's all here, topped by an unnerving revelation that pops up in La Vie en Rose's final moments. After awhile, with such a concentration of bad news squeezed into 140 minutes, one begins to wish Dahan had taken a more expansive approach to Piaf's life and times. But the film is never less than interesting, and the lead performance by Cotillard is often astonishing. --Tom Keogh
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