Though I was pulling for my personal favorite Julie Christie to win at this year’s Academy Awards, I was in no way disappointed in the selection of the gorgeous and talented French actress Marion Cotillard for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose. It’s a tad bit unusual as far as biopics are concerned as it doesn’t follow a solid through line. The film shows her life from early childhood to her death from liver cancer at the age of 47, but non-linear; almost a puzzle piecing together her past with her present. The film is extraordinary because of Cotillard and her magnanimous portrait of the famed chanteuse. As is the case with many Oscar winning performances from bio-pics (Reese Witherspoon’s overrated rendering of June Carter Cash a notable exception), there is a transformation at which you can do nothing but marvel. However, the prothesis aside (though seeing the frail and aged Piaf near death is jarring), Cotillard finds the humanity behind the legend, showing us that in spite of off-stage drama that colored her personality and aura, she was a passionate performer with an unending need to sing. (When she turns to her friend on her deathbed and knowingly asks “I’m never going to sing again, am I?” you are absolutely heart-broken). I do have to comment on Cotillard’s physicality. She has every gesture from the posture to the “singing through the hands” trademark down pat. I also wanted to comment: Edith Piaf was 4’8″. Marion Cotillard is about 5’7″ though you’d never know it from watching the film; she’s that convincing.
I didn’t know that much about Piaf prior to seeing the film, but have become fascinated. She is, in essence, the French Judy Garland (or was Garland the American Piaf?) She lived a torturous and brief existence, booze soaked and drug addled, mixing a powerful mezzo belt with the fire and intensity of an artist’s soul. The daughter of a street singer and an acrobat, she spent several years of her childhood being raised in her grandmother’s brothel. (A fascinating sequence; also, Piaf was struck blind due to infection, the religious prostitutes raised money to send her on a Pilgrimage to St. Thérèse de Lisieux). The superlatives applied to what will become Cotillard’s most famous role have all but exhausted the thesauri in the world. You’ve read the reviews and I won’t add to them. The accolades and awards are deserved; and Marion is a treasure to behold. Taking us through the dimensional world of a struggling insecure artist who’s temper and alcoholism are juxtaposed with moments of such vulnerability that all you want to do is hug Piaf. (It is during these moments where I feel Cotillard is channeling Giuletta Masina’s Gelsomina from La Strada, which is an extraordinary achievement that lesser actors couldn’t begin to fathom). The film, though doesn’t end just with her death, it is interspersed with her world-premiere performance of another signature song “Non, je ne regrette rien” (which translated means “No, I regret nothing”). Superb.
Trivia for the musical fans out there, Piaf’s close friend and composer Marguerite Monnot (played in the film by Marie-Armelle Deguy) who wrote the music for many of Piaf’s major pieces (most notably “Hymne à L’Amour,” with lyric by Piaf) became world-famous as the composer of the delightful musical comedy Irma La Douce which, composed in 1956, became the first French musical since the operettas of Offenbach to achieve world-wide popularity.
See the movie. Rejoice in the music. Marvel at Marion Cotillard.