VIE EN ROSE / (WS SUB AC3 DOL) - VIE EN ROSE / (WS SUB AC3 DOL)

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Product Description

Picturehouse and HBO Films present a critically-acclaimed biopic about the legendary international singing icon Edith Piaf, whose voice and talent captivated the world. Starring award-winner Marion Cotillard (A Very Long Engagement, A Good Year) in an astonishing performance, the film is a portrait of a remarkable artist born into poverty who survived using the only gift she had ? her voice. Piaf?s tragic life was a constant battle to sing and survive, to live and love, with no regrets.

• Actors: Marion Cotillard, Sylvie Testud, Pascal Greggory, Emmanuelle Seigner, Jean-Paul Rouve
• Director: Olivier Dahan
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language (Subtitled): English
• Language (Subtitled): French
• Language (Subtitled): Spanish
• Language (Original Language): English
• Language (Original Language): French
• Region Code: 1
• Release Date: 2007-11-13
• Running Time: 141 minutes
• Theatrical Release Date: 2007

Customer Reviews

Reviewed on 2008-07-05 See it for Marion Cotillard's performance 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

Reviewed on 2008-07-05 edith would be turning over in her grave 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.

Reviewed on 2008-06-27 Great Performance but........... 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.

Reviewed on 2008-06-27 Ne Pas de Wire Hangers! Pas de Wire Hangers, jamais!! Marion Cotillard one-hundred-and-ten-percent deserved her Academy Award for Best Actress based on her sheer commitment to this role, and for the unwavering belief I had in her performance: I don't know much about Edith Piaf, but from teen to crone, Cotillard's rendition of the script is consistent and enthralling. A pity, then, that such a talent and such a performance should belong to what is essentially La Mommie Dearest Francaise. "Christina! Apportez-moi la Ax!". Little Edith's life starts in miserable neglect and ends in neglectful misery... ...oh, and she becomes a famous singer in the middle. The problem with this movie is the screenplay: you know how in a TV miniseries events flash forward from crisis to crisis with no time for emotional development in the middle? That's what happens here. For all its high-fallotin' trappings, "La Vie En Rose" is essentially a pot-boilerish soap opera movie, with little to no character development for anyone but Cotillard - and even then, Cotillard's script ranges from truculent teen to truculent old lady. There's not enough exploration given to any one facet of Piaf's character, or to the possible consequences of Piaf's early tragedies. And tragedies there are! Early, middle and late life tragedies... ...two whole hours of tragedies! There's one particularly lovely scene where Cotillard's talent is allowed to express something other than fear, rage or sadness: there's a real sense of childlike wonder and mutual adoration when Piaf meets Dietrich - but this scene is atypical, and sadly, scenes like it are in very short supply. Supporting cast members sort of blend into one after a while: the nicest thing one can say about Depardieu and Jean-Pierre Martins is that the screenplay gives them five sympathetic minutes apiece before they (and their potentially interesting storylines) are dispatched without ceremony, to be replaced with another bout (or twelve) of hardship and shouting. Although Sylvie Testud gives a very compelling performance as Momone, again, we don't get enough of it. Direction is pretty, nothing unusual and nothing memorable. The dialogue is alright, too - but sadly seems to consist of a number of set-pieces with no explanation of cause or consequence to create a sense of a fluid narrative. I needed hiking boots to wade through to the end of "La Vie En Rose". I'm going to get seventeen million unhelpful review votes for this, but I have to call it as I see it. High Art, this is not. It's not a fair-handed retelling of the life of a great artist, and it's not even a particularly well-made movie. Cotillard might be great, but her greatness, along with the rest of the movie, is overwhelming and ultimately hollowed out by its own emotionally unavailable content. Rent if you're curious.

Reviewed on 2008-06-23 Perhaps the Finest Biographical Performance In The History of Cinema The legendary Edith Piaf (1915-1963) was essentially a street person who possessed little emotional self-control and whose often difficult life included alcoholism, crippling car accidents, drug addiction, and a series of scandals that included accusations of Nazi sympathies during World War II. But for all this, Piaf was a truly gifted artist whose talents ultimately outweighed her tempestuous personality and outrageous lifestyle: her fans, her friends, and her lovers seemed able to forgive anything when confronted with the scope of her vocal gifts. Then as now, she is regarded as the sound of the soul of France. It would seem artistic and commercial suicide for any actress to play the role of one so well-recalled and so intensely beloved as Piaf--but not only actress Marion Cotillard dare risk it, she is remarkably successful in the role, offering what is easily one of the great performances in cinema history. Once the film progresses beyond Piaf's childhood, Cotillard appears in virtually every shot, making LA VIE EN ROSE extremely dependent on her performance--and she carries it off in every scene. The illusion is astonishing. The film has an unusual structure, darting back and forth in time between Piaf as a child, Piaf during her final years, Piaf at the peak of powers. (Perhaps wisely, however, director Olivier Dahan and the script carefully excludes mention of Piaf's tendency to party with the Nazis in occupied Paris.) Cotillard makes the shifts with tremendous ease, as does the film itself. The designs and their executions are brilliant from start to finish and you believe in them. Although the supporting cast is quite good, this is really Cotillard's show, and she does indeed make the most of it. It is hardly surprising that she became only the second woman to win the Academy Award as Best Actress in a foreign language film: she deserved it. The DVD includes a brief "making of" documentary that focuses on Cotillard and her director; the print is excellent, and the sound (which makes use of Piaf's original recordings) is very fine. Strongly recommended. GFT, Amazon Reviewer

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