La môme

Plot synopsis:
As a small child, 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 contortionist, who is in the trenches of World War 1. She explains that she's dropping Edith off at her mother's so she can pursue the life of the artist.He returns to Paris and scoops up Edith, covered in insect bites and sores, from under the blanket of a bed in a delapidated house. He drops her off at his mother's house, a bordello madame in Brittany.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 are Edith's closest friends and they are repeatedly demeaned and abused by brothel customers. Screams of pain ring out one night, as Titine rushes down the hall to help her friend, who explains, "I let him play doctor and use his instruments on me." Edith enters the room, saying she cannot see. A doctor identifies it as keratitis, an inflammation of the eyes, and her eyes are wrapped in cloth. Titine and her visit St. Therese at Liseux, pray for vision. Later, as the members of the brothel pin up laundry in the backyard, Edith slowly pushes off her banage and reveals her eyes, and blinks up at the sky.Edith's father is discharged from the WW1 forces and takes Edith to live with him, at loud protests by Titine, who must be held back while he bundles Edith into a cart. Her father works in the circus as a contortionist. He cannot stand the manager, so they leave, performing on the streets of Paris. At one point a passerby asks if she is part of the show, and with prompting by her father to "do something," she sings the Marseillaise. More crowds gather around her and are obviously moved.She makes a friend from a factory job, Mômone, and they wander the streets, glugging from a bottle of wine, and Edith occasionally sings for their supper, quite literally. After singing a few songs and getting a meal in a bistro, her mother approaches her for some change. When Edith gives her a centime (or something that small), her mother yells at her that her daughter will never help her either. She also continues to yell "I am an artiste!" Her mother is grabbed by the waiter, and Edith and her friend quickly leave.Edith and Mômone go to a local bar and pay Albert, a slick dark haired pimp, cash and receive warnings that if she doesn't pull in more money he will "have her open her legs like the rest of my women."Singing on the street in the Montmartre neighborhood, a man approaches her and introduces himself- he is Pere Leplee, who has a lower and upper class nightclub.
She sings for him the next day, and his gay lover, bartendress, and other workers at her club are instantly appreciative of her skills, though the bartendress is quite jealous. Pere LePlee changes her name to Piaf, a colloquialism for Sparrow, because her original name is too long and off-putting. He introduces her at his show a week later, with new clothes, and a new song. His audience is also appreciative, and he introduces her to the president of the radio in Paris. She leaves the club quickly, despite the acclaim, and goes to the local bar where she passes Albert a large bundle of cash, and he returns one bill.Mômone is still in her entourage, and on New Years', 1935, she meets her next Pygmalion-esque manager, yet she does not follow up with him at all, simply pockets his business card. She and Mômone drink buckets of champagne and are rude and loud to almost everyone in their milieu. When one woman approaches to compliment Edith, she responds, "Your face is like a bag!"Afterwards, Pere Leplee is shot, and everybody thinks it is Edith's role in introducing him to the mafia, namely, the pimp Albert, that causes his murder. She is interviewed at a raucous cafe with a ton of paparazzi. She tries to sing at a low grade cabaret with Albert accompanying on accordion but she is shouted off the stage.In utter despair, she finally meets up with her next savior, and she meets a jewel of her career- Marguerite, a talented songwriter and accompanist. He discovers her "beautiful 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.She is in a large flat in Paris with her entourage, reading a Cocteau play, and joking with Mômone who is dressed as a man in this scene. She puts off the conductor of the orchestra despite the performance being in "48 hours," she invites in a Corporal who asks if she will perform his song. She listens and immediately embraces it, performing it the next night. (This is the trailer)She travels to New York for more performances. She meets Marcel, 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 she laughs very loud, and it is run now by his wife and three children. She is quiet, but is quickly falling in love, she reveals to Mômone that night. He attends her performance, and she attends his bouts for the championship, which he wins. They are led through a fire escape of her hotel, where she reveals, "I'm beginning to like this city. There are the stars!" and they have their first night together.At a party in her suite, she babbles to her maid and secretary Ginou that she doesn't mind he is married, she knows he loves his family. Mômone is annoyed that Edith talks about Marcel all the time. Edith calls Marcel, inducing him to fly to New York from Paris tonight. Mômone threatens to leave Edith during the phone call.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 glumly ash faced, standing in the suite in different rooms. She rushes off to get his present- a watch- and gets irritated that she can't find it. Ginou comes to the door with a very sad expression and exasperated, Edith asks what is wrong with everyone. Louis, her manager, takes her aside and tells her that Marcel died in the plane crash. Edith hysterically searches for the ghost of Marcel that was lounging on her bed just a moment before.Her mourning consists of seeking fortune tellers, cutting her hair and performing.There were 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 Louis to stop performing, as she is conducting her "suicide tour." She gets more shots of morphine and continues to perform. Later that night, she asks to ride with "The American," to drive 400 miles to another town to "catch some air." She tells him to turn around, and in his bad French he questions her, then gets into a car accident. We learn in another flash forward that she has broken two ribs and must be hospitalized, explaining the earlier flash forwards, of her convalescence in Grasse, with the carrot juice fights.In another flash forward, she 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.She travels to California after her first convalescence and is married to a man- the first husband- and driving around with Ginou and some others, in a car. Ginou is carsick and Edith takes the small break as an opportunity to drive the car, which she does, into a cactus. She jokes that she will now hitchhike.She sits with her husband 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 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. She says she wants to change.A small, tiny 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 the Olympia. Her long time arranger Bruno Coquatrice is told to cancel it. A new songwriter and arranger shows up wtih a song- "Je ne regrette rien," and Edith explains this is her life, this is what she lives for, and tells Bruno that she will perform 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 south of France. 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 approach and introduces herself. She is there for an interview. She asks Edith simple questions- what is her favorite color, her favorite food "Pot roast." and then more questions. What is the most important thing for an adult to know? "To love." For a woman? A child? A baby? All answers: "To 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.She remembers her child, Marcelle, that she had with Louis when she was a street performer. She remembers how he yelled at her for taking Marcelle out on the street. She was singing in a cabaret when Louis came to tell her Marcelle was in the hospital. They arrive, and Marcelle has already died.Edith dies.

Tags: sentimental, murder, historical, flashback

Review:
It is difficult to overstate the necessary calibre of a woman who was raised in a filthy whorehouse, sung and slept on the street, travelled with the circus, lost her child at 20, went blind for a time, was wrongly accused of murder, struggled with a drug addiction and lost other loved ones by the bucketload in her life, and still got up on stage at the end of her life to sing "Je ne regrette rien".
La Môme documents each stage of Edith Piaf's life with creative direction and an intense performance by its lead actress, Martion Cotillard.Ultimately it is a film that curiously enough does not come down to acting or story so much as it owes everything to its direction by Olivier Dahan.
The film is momentarily gray and depressing, only to jerk the audience away from the misery and lose itself in a blossom-strewn pictorial style whenever Piaf goes on stage.La Môme is a one-woman-show in all respects, with Cotillard shamelessly relegating every other cast member to the background with her emotional intensity.
I don't agree with those who say her performance is melodramatic, because the singer WAS very emotional and even melodramatic (though in a perfectly natural way) in real life too (as all the biographers remark).One thing about the movie that annoyed me a little was the switches of time frames.
The movie never seems too long, and its last minutes are very emotional, when Edith Piaf is led to the stage, she can hardly walk, and then she starts to sing 'No regrets' and transforms completely..
It really does.I saw the movie yesterday, went home, and listened to Edith's albums for hours, and they meant so much...they spoke volumes.Anyway, the direction is perfect, although there is one scene towards the end which has problems - it tells, for the very first time, of a rather important event in the much earlier years of the singer's life , and the event in question seems to be out of place, sort of neglected - as if it should have been dealt with an hour earlier.
Edith Piaf's story brings to mind the tragedy of Judy Garland, in some ways her American counterpart  a freakishly talented girl with severe emotional problems who was plucked from obscurity by perceptive and farsighted mentors and transformed into a great artist before self-destructing under the pressures and imbalances inherent in superstardom.This film is the second attempt in the last 20-odd years to tell the story of the amazing Edith Piaf.
Now we have another attempt, this time on film, which is also panned for being sketchy and without depth but worth seeing because of an outstanding lead performance, this time by Marion Cotillard.I agree with most of the other commentators that the script by Olivier Dahan and Isobel Sobelman (if there even was a full script) and Dahan's direction are messy and confusing, as if the director wanted to emulate the Baz Luhrman touch by creating a 10-ring circus.
A few blocks further on I came to a cinema and decided that it would be great to see a 'movie' on a real big screen rather than the way I see most films these days through the distinctly low-def screen built into the back of the airline seat in front of me.I was just in time to buy tickets for La Vie en Rose which was starting right away.
Edith Piaf's gravelly voice and melodramatic life is superbly portrayed by Marion Cotillard as the film works its way through her life to the accompaniment of her distinctive songs.
The Little Sparrow as she was known led a tragic life of immense proportion before dying at the age of 47 making her story tailor made for a film bio, but in spite of this plethora of material, the makers disjoint the whole affair by juggling the chronology.From a depraved childhood filled with abuse and horror the scrawny but scrappy Piaf fends off a pimp, is discovered then ruined through scandal is re-discovered falls in love with a world champion fighter, becomes drug dependent and eventually gives up the ghost.
But in either case, an accurate, truthful portrayal of anyone's life is an impossibility and the director of LA VIE EN ROSE is conscious of this and deliberately avoided some things about Edith which would have conflicted with this portrait he wanted to create but the fact that Yves Montand didn't even figure somewhere in this portrait was, imo, very bizarre.This brings another point: the film is so focused on Edith that all other characters are pushed in the background and we hardly know who they are.
I knew Piaf's life-story well but I still found the structure of the film and the way it leaps about in time a little confusing.
Apart from the fact that I found this the most depressing film since "The Serpent's Egg", my biggest disappointments were with the lack of subtitling for the songs, and that large periods of Edith Piaf's life were just left out - WWII never happened!
I can't believe how mesmerizing Marion Cotillard was in the lead role of "Edith Piaf." The above superlatives, and ones mentioned below, by the way, come from a guy (me) who normally doesn't watch a lot of melodramas, either.
Although Marion Cotillard does a wonderful job being Edith Piaf, I didn't quite enjoy the movie, mostly because of the bad direction.
"La Vie en Rose" uses a nonsensically jumbled structure to tell the life story of Edith Piaf, a woman whose life had perhaps enough tragedy for two movies but barely makes sense in this version.
"La Vie en Rose," however, has the annoying habit of cutting away from a scene just when it is getting interesting, to show a different time period that bears no obvious connection to the other scene.The movie also assumes previous knowledge of Edith Piaf's life, since it leaves so much unsaid.
The scenes are edited frantically to go back and forth in time endlessly, in fact at the end of the movie, the Director brings in this bizarre revelation of Piaf's child dying as a child, which belonged in the beginning of the film, so out of place.
due to this confusing plot construction one couldn't really built up a connection to the main character, but most of all one couldn't understand Edith Piaf at all...in my opinion the biggest problem of this movie is that it's trying too hard to combine so many things from her life and then loosing itself in unimportant scenes and unmotivated shots.
Basically we see the story of a little girl living with prostitutes and a circus group, that of a young 20-year old busker making it big for a while before falling down, that of a famous singer involved in a star-crossed relationship with a boxer and that of an older lady who has 'lost' everything but looks back at her life and regrets nothing (powerfully expressed in "Je ne regrette rien".The soundtrack deserves credit as it keeps the viewer amused and engaged and it adds to the unique feel of the film.
When Piaf sings (incredibly lip synced by Marion Cotillard) it seems to act as a bridge between one sad scene to the next as the film jumps around between her last few years of life.
Just as there is disappointment when you go to an arena to see a fight and a hockey game breaks out, I went to the Edith Piaf movie, La Vie en Rose, and they showed The Hunchback of Montmartre instead.Marion Cotillard, portraying the incomparable Piaf, doesn1t recreate the deeply troubled singer1s complexity of emotions, desires and neurosis, she indicates them mostly with a few stock faces and movements.
There isn1t a cliché in the book he overlooks in this confusing mess which defies an audience to understand when most of the events depicted in this sad story are happening to the 3little sparrow2 whose voice could arouse emotions from a block of granite.Dahan took great pains to make the actress a replica of Piaf whose real voice was lip synched.
All this under the optics of the biopic but with a very unconventional twist having a non-linear structure, which gives the movie a different dynamic (although this might be confusing for some viewers).However, the real driving force and soul of the film is Marion Cotillard's monumental Oscar-winning performance, who unlike other performances based on real characters, it transcends the mere act of imitation and becomes Edith Piaf delivering the portrait of a woman who despite her physical and personal tragedies became the inspiration for thousands of people through her voice and singing.
And by the way she gives us one of the most spectacular and powerful performances in recent years.In addition, the extraordinary work of characterization (especially in the last years of life of Piaf) and the production values ​​(art direction, costume design, the use of Piaf's songs) give more credibility to the magnificent incarnation (or reincarnation?) of Edith Piaf in a film that easily could become another lifeless biopic.
If you look actually at Edith Piaf's videos online you can see that during the last years of her life she is very sick and still has the power to sing and perform on stage with a good sense of humor.
I have to say that i enjoyed this film notwithstanding the fact that it constantly switched eras.However what the director seemed to have forgotten is the fact that whilst many of us are familiar with and enjoy her music we are unfamiliar with her life.So it was only by reading the mini biog on IMB that i was able to make a great deal of sense out of what was happening.For example no explanation was given as to the reasons for her drug taking.The birth of a child was not mentioned.The murder of her first mentor was not explained.Why was she paying money to the pimp.Was she a prostitute?None of this was made clear and i feel that this detracts from the film and makes it more difficult for audiences outside of France to fully understand her story..
Filmography, sound, scenography and acting, everything in a package that you will never forget.The story of a star with all the drama behind the curtains.A roller-coaster of emotions, beautifully crafter and sensationally interpreted by every single actor and actress.Marion Cotillard, I could not even put in words the tremendous portraying of Edith Piaf.
Cleary Dahan holds of on one of Piaf's greatest, most well know, and well loved songs until the very end.Sure the alternating scenes at times get a little confusing; however, they fit well within Piaf's life.What can be said about Cotillard?
What a beautifully realized biopic on the life of the greatest French singer of all time, Edith Piaf.
(by a pop singer !).Olivier Dahan's did not probably make the definitive Piaf biopic -as users have already pointed out,it would take a miniseries:the half-sister's book ,a 700+ pages biography is impossible to transfer to the screen-but it's easily the best to date.Marion Cotillard easily outdistances her rivals (Brigitte Ariel and Evelyne Bouix)in a Cesar -calibre performance.If she does not get the award,it will be as unfair as Ellen Burnstyn losing her AA to Julia Roberts.The problem for Marion Cotillard will be to find a follow up to the French runaway blockbuster of the year...Olivier Dahan,flouting chronology ,chose key moments in Piaf's eventful life.One can regret that the songs are cut, particularly "Milord" (which Cher covered in America) and "Hymne à L'Amour" .Minor quibbles:the actor playing Cerdan is too refined,too "playboy" to portray Cerdan successfully,a great boxer but an uneducated not-so-handsome man whose favourite reading was the Katzenjammers ("Pim Pam Poum" in French) and whom Piaf herself tried to cultivate his mind (she made him read ,reportedly Mary Webb's "Sarn" );and Theo Sarapo's absence:he was her last love ,and a true love dedicated to her,he sweetened her awful last moments ,together they sang a duet which was a hit "A Quoi ça Sert l'Amour?'Theo Sarapo (Sarapo= I love you in Greek) deserved a niche in Piaf's saga.Too bad.On the other hand,Piaf's faith in Sainte Thérèse de Lisieux remained intact (there is a pilgrimage in the movie) till her last breath.Although her funeral stopped the traffic in Paris ,she was refused a Christian ceremony,the church having declared that she lived in sin.Marlene Dietrich who was here (she briefly appears in the movie,played by Caroline Sihol;remember the German actress sang "La Vie En Rose" in Hitchcock's "stage fright" )cried out:"How much did they love her!".Olivier Dahan made the best of the huge material which he had at his disposal.Some will complain cause Yves Montand and Charles Aznavour do not appear.But the same goes for Georges Moustaki,Mella (from "les Compagnons de la Chanson", Felix Marten;even Henri Vidal was discovered by Piaf...And anyway as the chanteuse wrote:Dans le Ciel Plus de Problème, Dieu Réunit Ceux Qui s'Aiment..
Though I did not like this style of presenting the story, the film still worked for me, because of its high production values, the inherent fascination of Piaf's eventful life, and Cotillard's not-to-be-missed performance..
Marion Collard reincarnates PIAF, she is that good;as a movie, even with the directors shortcomings and minor inexactitudes in the plot, is worth watching; excellent recreation of the period, beautiful photography and above all, a legendary performance by a little known actress.
La Vie en Rose is a great movie that portrays the life of singer Edith Piaf through her childhood and through the tragedies she faced around her as she grew up.
The movie really gives life to the character of Edith, and I think that is especially achieved through Marion Cotillard, the actress playing Edith Piaf in the film.
Her emotional acting is able to lead the audience of the movie through the difficult times that Edith felt in her life.The makeup was incredibly well done, as Marion Cotillard was made to look almost exactly like the real Edith Piaf.
The makeup also was very well transitioned from Edith's early childhood years to her teenage years, and to adulthood.I also enjoyed the music in this movie, and I like the idea of for example, when Edith was going through a difficult time or a tragedy, in the background would be a song of hers that relates to what she is experiencing at the moment.Although I have stated many good comments about this film, it is a little depressing, though that is expected if you know the life of Edith Piaf.
Overall, however, it was a really well-made movie with excellent acting from Marion Cotillard, and a powerful drama that brings to life the voice and heart of French singer Edith Piaf..
I liked Olivier Dahan's film and I found it a loving tribute to life of the great French singer but without Marion Cotillard it just would have been yet another above average biography.
Basically, every rule of good screen writing is broken, and if you are going to be using a format, as this director did, that is not linear and floats back and forth in time, you need to give your viewers some clues to hold on to.As I said, spectacular performance by Ms. Cotillard, but the life of Edith Piaf has epic written all over it and that did not come through in this film..
A worthwhile film to explore if one is interested in learning the storied history of legendary French singer Edith Piaf, La vie en Rose is a classy period piece production detailing the singer's rough upbringing through to her historic last stand.I credit director Olivier Dahan for piecing the movie together in a non-chronological way and adding dashes of surrealist imagery to help tell her story in a more intriguing, accessible way but the constant cutting back and forth does become excessive at points and almost seems like a distraction when it is too constant.Of course the award winning Marion Cotillard shines brightly as the tempestuous title character, though her makeup department shines nearly as bright, authentically reproducing Piaf's appearance throughout the decades with believability.
I knew very little about Edith Piaf apart from a couple of her songs before i saw this movie but when i came out the cinema i felt like i had just watched the real lady on screen.
I am not a fan of foreign films or music but this was one movie that entranced me from the word Go. I went into this knowing nothing about Edith Piaf and the life she led but the story just gripped me.
"La Vie en Rose" is the biography of the French singer Édith Piaf who was regarded as France's national diva, as well as being one of France's greatest international stars.In this movie we the outstanding interpretation of Marion Cotillard (Won the Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role), who plays as Edith Piaf and I think that this interpretation of her was her best and I liked it very much.
I have long heard of this film, since it had won the Oscar Best Actress prize for lead actress Marion Cotillard for her total embodiment of the central character, French singer Edith Piaf.
Regardless, the film is worth watching, if for no other reason that Ms. Cotillard's performance and the amazing Piaf songs..
But in the story's final act, as Piaf moves inexorably closer to the end of her life, the movie becomes a deeply moving and heartbreaking study of a talented woman brought down by the cruelties of fate (she suffered from crippling arthritis) and her own self-inflicted wounds.Clearly, the chief selling-point of "La Vie en Rose," written by Isabelle Sobelman and Olivier Dahan and directed by Dahan, is the stunning tour de force (and Oscar-winning) performance by Marion Cotillard, who inhabits the character so completely that we truly feel we are watching Edith Piaf herself in the flesh (an illusion enhanced by the filmmakers' reliance on actual Piaf recordings for the singing).