Piaf = Cotillard
As biopics about self-destructive artists go, Oliver Dahan's La Vie en Rose -- the sad story of French songbird Edith Piaf -- is above-average. It screams "passion" from every pore, and delivers in the way a movie like this should -- superb period atmosphere (World War I to early 1960s), handsome production values, fine ensemble acting, skillful editing and, for a film about a very intense and event-filled life, appropriately longish (140 minutes). But it is essential viewing for one reason and one reason only -- Marion Cotillard's bracingly vivid, wholly convincing, almost mind-blowingly hardcore performance as Piaf.
Marion Cotillard in A Good Year; as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose
A large-eyed, dark-haired hottie last seen in Ridley Scott's A Good Year, the 31 year-old Cotillard so physically resembles the diminutive Piaf -- a frail, sparrow-like woman who stood only 4 foot seven inches -- and so burrows inside this legendary singer's aura of hurt in nearly every stage of her life that she blows you away in almost every scene. I'm making it sound like an overbearing performance but it's not, trust me.
Matthew Smith's prosthetic makeup is certainly part of the effect, but Cotillard's performance would be nothing without her capturing Piaf's spiritual essence (or at least, what I've always believed that spiritual essence amounted to) . The result is one of those amazing-transformation, De Niro-as-Jake La Motta performan- ces that automatically gets Oscar attention. 2007 isn't quite one-third gone, but there's no way in hell Cotillard won't be Best Actress-nominated.
La Vie en Rose (called La Mome in France) won't open in this country until June 8. (Bob Berney's Picturehouse is distributing.) Nonetheless, the L.A. press junket happens tomorrow and its L.A. premiere tomorrow night.
Dahan, who co-wrote the script with Isabelle Sobelman, adopts a here-and-there, back-and-forth approach to Piaf's relatively brief life (1915 to 1963), which didn't quite span 48 years. He takes paintbrush stabs at her life with a kind of mosaic- pointillist technique.
There's no way to deliver the kind of upbeat-ending finales that Ray and Walk The Line had when your subject winds up dead from morphine addiction and other lifelong abuses (and looking like death itself at the end), but the spirit of this enterprise is so fierce and trembling that using the word "downer" would be grossly off-the-mark.
I could pass along the plot particulars and describe the numerous secondary characters and raise a glass to each and every performer, but I'm not going to. Everything significant in Piaf's Wikipedia biography has been rendered on the screen, and if you want to know the story before seeing the film, go for it.
Suffice that all the performances have a finely rendered, steeped-in-conviction quality. Gerard Depardieu's Louis Leplee, the Parisian nightclub owner who discovered Piaf, and Jean-Pierre Marin's Marcel Cerdan, the great love of Piaf's life, are the best of the lot.
I was also taken with Catherine Allegret's performance as Louise, a Normandy brothel-runner who helped raise Piaf as a very young girl. (My first thought was how much Allegret resembles Simone Signoret; it was quite a mind-bender to read that she's her daughter.)
Here's a video clip of a scratchy old concert film clip of Piaf in the late 1950s. And here's another one.
"La vie en rose" (i.e., "life through rose-colored glasses") is said to be Piaf's signature song, although I've always thought that "Non, je ne regrette rien" was a much fuller, on-target summation of who she was and how she dealt with the ups and downs.
Picturehouse acquired U.S . distrib rights o La Vie in Rose in Cannes last year, and will be pushing it for Best Foreign Language Feature, no question.
Cotillard "delivers one of the best female performance of the past decade," a guy who wrote me from the Berlin Film Festival insisted last February. "She's the Penelope Cruz-in-Volver of this calendar year, except she could have a serious shot at winning." I don't agree. At this stage of the game, Cotiilard seems like this year's Helen Mirren. Is that overstating things? I'm not so sure that it is.
It's not in the least bit significant that Cotillard is 5' 6 and 1/2 inches, or nearly a full foot taller than Piaf, since almost no one watching this film is likely to know this or be aware of any height discrepancy anyway. But it is significant that everything she says and does as Piaf is a complete immersion, an exceptional revisiting...an absolute knockout.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on April 15, 2007 at 8:21 PM
comment #1
Smurf
says ...
she first popped on my radar in Besson's "Taxi" movies - total eye candy plus a brain and heart (Cotillard, not Taxi)
Posted by Smurf
at April 15, 2007 8:44 PM
comment #2
Craig Kennedy
says ...
I've been looking forward to this one. Glad to hear some positive reviewage.
Posted by Craig Kennedy
at April 15, 2007 9:16 PM
comment #3
wholovesya
says ...
Wells, you know you and Poland agree on this one right? Is...that...possible?
In any event, you are right. She's phenomenal, but the movie ain't half as bad as you insuate it is on it's own.
Posted by wholovesya
at April 15, 2007 9:32 PM
comment #4
tholl-yung
says ...
This looks fabu. Wholovesya, I'm not smelling the same "half as bad" fumes you insuate that you're picking up from Wells. Am I mis-reading?
Posted by tholl-yung
at April 15, 2007 10:12 PM
comment #5
Craig Kennedy
says ...
I wondered the same thing T.Holly. Sounded like a pretty unqualified rave to me.
Posted by Craig Kennedy
at April 15, 2007 10:16 PM
comment #6
ioncinema.com
says ...
Couldn’t agree with you more Jeff - an above mediocre biopic elevated by a wonderful performance - brimming in tragedy. And for once I wasn't turned off by the make-up job showing the affects of ageism (plus alcoholism and a broken heart).
I first caught sight of Marion in a forgettable, somewhat cutesy role in Yann Samuell's Love Me If You Dare.
I still think Picturehouse needs to set some dough aside for year-end marketing/ and remembering campaign...
Posted by ioncinema.com
at April 15, 2007 11:02 PM
comment #7
wholovesya
says ...
Referring to the movie as "above average" versus "excellent" "very good" or "great" does not constitute a rave. It is equivalent to a hesitant "good" or "OK."
At least in my book.
Posted by wholovesya
at April 15, 2007 11:50 PM
comment #8
Mark G.
says ...
I agree, Piaf's NON JE NE REGRETTE RIEN is just as iconic as Sinatra's MY WAY...
Cotillard is much better than the movie, which is missing many explanations despite its length...
Posted by Mark G.
at April 16, 2007 2:59 AM
comment #9
Rob
says ...
"Cotillard is much better than the movie"
Every year, this is the critical party line on whatever movie is the frontrunner for Best Actress. I'm beginning to think it's a function of the male-dominated critical establishment's reluctance to really get behind a woman-centered movie.
Posted by Rob
at April 16, 2007 7:38 AM
comment #10
Ju-osh
says ...
I'll second ionicinema's recommendation for 'Love Me If You Dare.' It's a quirky French love story in the vein of 'Amelie', but even more candy-colored and with a darker sense of humor. Speaking of 'Amelie', I thought Cotillard stole the show as the vengeful prostitute in Jeunet and Tautou's follow-up, 'A Very Long Engagement'.
Posted by Ju-osh
at April 16, 2007 7:48 AM
comment #11
Craig Kennedy
says ...
"above average" doesn't qualify as a rave for sure (I was blinded by all the other performance directed adjectives in my initial breeze through) but it's also not an insinuation the movie is bad on its own.
For any biography (can't stand the word biopic) "above average" is pretty good because usually it's a genre I don't care for.
Posted by Craig Kennedy
at April 16, 2007 9:06 AM
comment #12
Movie fan09
says ...
wasn't she billy crudup's wife in big fish?
Posted by Movie fan09
at April 16, 2007 9:38 AM
comment #13
gruver1
says ...
Wells to Alfred: Yes.
Posted by gruver1
at April 16, 2007 10:05 AM
comment #14
nemo
says ...
I'm usually not one to bust Jeff's chops for inconsistency, or any of his other many sins. But how is it he's all over "The Hoax" because Richard Gere is a mere 15 years older than the historical character he's playing? (Gere is 57, Clifford Irving was 42 in 1972 when his hoax blew up.) But he gives "La vie en rose" a pass even though Marion Cotillard is nearly a foot taller than the famously tiny Edith Piaf? (5'6.5" versus 4'7".)
And then he waves it off by saying "It's not in the least bit significant ... almost no one watching this film is likely to know this or be aware of any height discrepancy anyway."
I'm old enough to remember the Clifford Irving blowup, and without looking up Irving in Wikipedia, I couldn't have told you whether he was 35, 45, 55, or 60 at the time. Even looking at a 1972 picture of Irving I would have had trouble guessing his age plus or minus a decade. But even in the US most people who have heard of Edith Piaf know she was a tiny little thing. And practically everyone in France knows it. Her stage name "Piaf" is a Parisian slang term for "sparrow".
Seems like both Gere and Cotillard should get a pass. 15 years and 1 foot are both big differences, but come on, they aren't that big. The only real test is whether the audience accepts the actor as the character.
I'm looking forward to both films, especially the Piaf film.
(I'm also getting more and more confused about Piaf's true height. Wells claims 4'7". Wikipedia claims 4'8", but they also say 147 cm, which is almost 4'10". People do get shorter as they age, especially when they are in poor health. Even at a towering 4'10" she would have been tiny.)
Posted by nemo
at April 16, 2007 10:40 AM
comment #15
Craig Kennedy
says ...
I think you're right Nemo. It's unfair to give Cotillard a pass but not Gere especially when you consider Piaf's height was sort of a defining physical characteristic, besides her voice of course.
Most of the people who are drawn to the movie I'm guessing will have a familiarity with the real deal and most of those will know she was tiny.
Posted by Craig Kennedy
at April 16, 2007 11:12 AM
comment #16
Mr. Muckle
says ...
Well, let's not be heightist about it. But how much does she weigh.
Saw Cotillard the other night in "A Good Year." (I did not pay for it, thank goodness.) The part was nothing, but she does, imo, qualify as a "hottie."
Re: "A Good Year" and Russell Crowe, let me just say that his comedic chops are pretty much those of, say, a gladiator whose family was murdered by an emperor who also killed his father to gain the throne.
But with a lot of work and good direction, he might be able to raise them to, oh, the level of "The Three Stooges."
Posted by Mr. Muckle
at April 16, 2007 11:36 AM
comment #17
alan
says ...
Coincidentally, I just watched the Criterion DVD of Jean Renoir's French Cancan yesterday, which has a singing cameo by Edith Piaf. The film is definitely worth checking out too, by the way.
Posted by alan
at April 16, 2007 12:50 PM
comment #18
Craig Kennedy
says ...
Jean Gabin is always terrific, but Piaf's bit was a highlight. It's kind of a trifle compared to Grand Illusion or Rules of the Game, but what's wrong with that?
Posted by Craig Kennedy
at April 16, 2007 2:02 PM
comment #19
renorambler
says ...
She is quite amazing in A Very Long Engagement. The conversation scene in the prison with Audrey Tattou is perfection.
Posted by renorambler
at April 16, 2007 6:13 PM
comment #20
bacio
says ...
without Cotillard´s performance,the film would be nothing. It is not a bad film, it´s just a lot of individual scenes that don´t add up too much. there is a always dilemma with biopics, and this is one is no different. the director tries to hard to make it feel different. eventually, it is quite confusing and just as irrelevant as most other conventional biopics.
But Cotillard is such a stand-out, it´s almost beyond belief. She will single-handedly carry this film to a Best Foreign language nomination and she will be nominated for Best Actress.
Posted by bacio
at April 17, 2007 12:25 AM
comment #21
NYCritic
says ...
The film played at the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema here in NYC back in March and even then people -- critics, distributors, etc. -- were trying to size up her chances for a nomination for this year. It IS an amazing performance. But if you really want to get technical -- Cotillard who has sung in other films -- lip synchs in the film -- some of the later songs are by Piaf, but the earlier ones are by Jil Aigrot. The early Piaf recordings were too scratchy to use so the producers hired a "ringer."
The movie has its problems and omits some interesting facets of Piaf's life, like her association with the French Resistance. The nonlinear structure eventually seems haphazard and an attempt by the director to keep things interesting. Cotillard, though, is superb -- it is one of the best female performances I've seen in years, memorable in every aspect.
Posted by NYCritic
at April 17, 2007 4:23 PM