This film, with its English subtitles, about the obscure Parisian singer, Edith Piaf, screams "chick flick" and so I waited until my husband had driven off to his soccer game before settling down to watch it. I had been curious to see it, as I've appreciated her music for many years.
If you choose to see it, be prepared for tragedy and drama spiced with her joy of singing, and a liberal dose of the songs for which she became famous. Her first performance before an audience occurs after her father, a ne'er-do-well contortionist who quit the circus to make a living on the streets of Paris, tells her to "Do something!" She belts out the national French anthem, and is showered with coins. From this moment, her career as "the singing sparrow" (the literal meaning of "Piaf" is "sparrow") begins to take wing.
The film is nonlinear and bounces back and forth between her childhood, and her time on the streets as a street singer, then into the late fifties and early sixties, after she has achieved notoriety as Paris's beloved chanteuse. This had a bit of a dizzying effect on me. But what I really appreciated was the metamorphosis of Oscar-award-winner, Marion Cotillard, who plays Edith in her adult years, from a fetching ingenue to a sickly 40-something who ages rapidly and dramatically. Also, Ms. Cotillard's resemblance to the real Edith Piaf is astounding. And the lip-synching by both Ms. Cotillard and the actress who plays young Edith, Pauline Burlet, is spot on.
While it is heart-warming to see Piaf's emergence from the literal gutters of Paris to the high-
society venues of Paris and New York City, it seems evident that similar to the story of Robert Johnson, the blues musician, somewhere along the way she made a pact with the devil - or in her case, St. Theresa - for fame as a singer. And once she achieves it, she is then forced to pay dearly with several debilitating losses; that of her health; of her one true love, the boxer Marcel Cerdan; of her daughter Marcelle, who has been kept a deep, dark secret throughout the life of her career; and finally, of herself, as she succumbs to death at the age of 48.
society venues of Paris and New York City, it seems evident that similar to the story of Robert Johnson, the blues musician, somewhere along the way she made a pact with the devil - or in her case, St. Theresa - for fame as a singer. And once she achieves it, she is then forced to pay dearly with several debilitating losses; that of her health; of her one true love, the boxer Marcel Cerdan; of her daughter Marcelle, who has been kept a deep, dark secret throughout the life of her career; and finally, of herself, as she succumbs to death at the age of 48.The most heart-rending moment of the movie is during her final performance at the Olympia, when she sings a song which she believes most sums up her life, "Non je ne regrette rien" which is similar to Frank Sinatra singing "My Way." "No, I regret nothing," the sparrow warbles, for through everything, she has tasted love.
