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.Running Time: 141 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/BIOGRAPHY UPC: 026359441226 Manufacturer No: 94412

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #217 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2007-11-13
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 141 minutes

Amazon.com
Edith Piaf is the subject of La Vie en Rose, director Olivier Dahan's powerful if emotionally redundant biographical film about the iconic French superstar whose life, as depicted here, seems to have been a numbing succession of tragedies interrupted on occasion by artistic triumph. Dahan's portrait begins with Piaf's stay in a brothel as a young girl. Left to the care of her grandmother (who runs the place) after her father pulls her away from a narcissistic mother, Piaf undergoes significant health problems and grows up to sing on the street in lieu of outright prostitution. The film pulses along with the usual biopic rhythms, with pivotal moments in the life of Piaf (played as an adult by Marion Cotillard) turning up regularly only to be smacked aside by the unseen hand of perpetual misfortune. There's the impresario (Gerard Depardieu) who recognizes Piaf's great but raw talent only to have a run-in with the criminal element around her. There's the heavyweight fighter (Marcel Cerdan) who becomes the love of Piaf's life but can't be with her. Drug addiction, random car accidents, tax problems, you name it, it's all here, topped by an unnerving revelation that pops up in La Vie en Rose's final moments. After awhile, with such a concentration of bad news squeezed into 140 minutes, one begins to wish Dahan had taken a more expansive approach to Piaf's life and times. But the film is never less than interesting, and the lead performance by Cotillard is often astonishing. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Deserved the Oscar!
My daughter and I bought the film because we wanted to see it after the star won an Oscar even though it is a French film. We loved it--didn't move an inch from the sofa. All our friends say the same.

Memories of the past
Excelent purchase. Academy award winner. a Great film of a great lady whom I still reveere today.

Marion Cotillard's performance is remarkable.
If Daniel Day Lewis (There will be Blood) is Marlon Brando then Marion Cotillard is Greta Garbo. "La Mome" reveals Edith Piaf strangely enough. It's put together peacemeal and in a see-saw back-and-forth, aggitatingly shuffled-way that must have taken mind-numbing months in the editing room. This movie uses some of the most beautiful caramel colored lights in cinematography. It brightens the lips and warms everything to a bedroom softness and is the vessel used to see her beautiful youth; hair in dark, french fashion, cut off above the shoulders, with dimpled cheeks and youthful smile. She ages back and forth, jumping playfully through the years of her life like some game gone tragic because we see her life, very early on in that recourse, that it does not indeed turn out like some fairy tale. Her hair creeps back revealing more of her prominant forehead, and her back becomes stooped over permenantly as if she carried invisible sacks of water. She becomes a terrible victim of addiction to Morphine and Alcohol and suffers the greatest loss, her amorous love Marcel. She worships Saint Theresa, only to be denied a funeral mass by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Paris. We see her again, but as a young girl, but with those familiar luminous green eyes. There is one thing that carries through all the times, ages, and transformations that grew to be a symbolism of love within her, and it was those gleamy, rare green eyes of hers. Because within her, was a Love not common. And because of that, it becomes an extraordinary meloncholy.