Film Review
As icons go, they don't come much greater than Edith
Piaf. Over the course of a career that spanned thirty years, Piaf
rose from being an unknown Parisian cabaret performer to become one of
the most celebrated singers in history. Piaf perfected an art
form known as
chanson réaliste,
popular working class songs about life, love and death, about joy and
sorrow, inspired by her own experiences, interpreted in a way that
suggested the words were wrung from the depths of her soul. Although
she lived for most of her life in the public eye, Piaf's private life
remains a dark and mysterious place. Various attempts have been
made by writers and filmmakers to piece together the life of the great
singer, but the boundary between reality and imagination remains
constantly blurred, Even Piaf's own autobiography "Au bal de la
chance" (a.k.a. "The Wheel of Fortune"), first published in 1958, is
selective and misleading, clearly an attempt by its
author to help fashion her own myth as a rags-to-riches tragic heroine
to counter the very negative portrayal of her by some commentators.
The truth is that
no one has
a complete picture of Edith Piaf. She remains an enigma.
Perhaps our best guide to who she was comes from the recordings of her
songs. You have only to listen to the later recordings of her
anthem
Je ne regrette rien to
get a sense of Piaf's true identity. Just
as her art was informed by her life, so her life is now revealed to us through
her songs - the words and, more crucially, the way in which she
expresses these words in her singing. The reason why Olivier
Dahan's bold cinematic portrayal of the life of Edith Piaf works so
well is because it does pretty much this - it allows Piaf to tell her
own story through her songs.
Anyone expecting
La Môme to
be a traditional biopic about Piaf's life risks being disappointed by
this film. Rather than a detailed chronological account of the
singer's life, the film shows how the myth that was Piaf came about,
through a unique confluence of talent and circumstance, through good
fortune intertwined with tragic disaster. Like Thomas Hardy's
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, the
picture of Piaf as a plaything of the gods is almost inescapable.
She lived and loved with an intensity that is more than human; Heaven
showered her with great gifts that would lift her to the heights of
happiness, only for her to be knocked down to Earth once these
treasures had been ripped out of her grasp. Dahan's film shows
Piaf as an almost Faust-like figure who was driven to success not by
any great ambition for wealth or fame, but to fulfil a deep-rooted need for love,
the love which
was lacking in her early years.
La Môme is impressive,
alluring and memorable, but it isn't perfect. Much of the
dialogue lacks subtlety, the choppy narrative is at times confusing,
and few, if any, of the secondary characters are drawn with any great depth or
imagination. Yet it is a film which it is so easy to fall in love with, and
not just because of its stylish design and genuinely impressive production values.
What sells the film is the very effective way in which it matches up Piaf's songs
with the poignant scenes taken from her life. It's a film which plays
on our emotions, in a way that respects both its subject and the intelligence of its audience.
More than anything, this is a film which explores the relationship between
the artist and her life - how art emerges from the experiences of life
and how it goes on to affect the lives of others. It's not perfect,
but it is a deeply moving film - probably the best tribute that cinema has so far offered
to Edith Piaf.
What makes
La
Môme such a potent film is the tortured,
engrossing performance of its lead actress. Playing Edith Piaf
both as a young woman and in her later years, Marion Cotillard holds
our attention in every scene, dragging us up to Piaf's searing highs and
down to her devastating lows. She captures both the incredible power and
charisma of the singer's public persona and the sadness and
frailty of the private individual behind this carefully controlled
mask. The film's producer and financial backers were originally
dead set against having Cotillard in the leading role; although she had
acquired a solid reputation in France, she was virtually unknown
elsewhere. It was Dahan's insistence that secured the actress the
role, a gamble that has certainly paid off. Having triumphed in
France (where it achieved a very respectable audience of five million),
the film proved to be a great success across the world, particularly in
the United States (where Piaf continues to have a very large
following). A shower of awards inevitably ensued, including
four Césars and three BAFTAs. The crowning glory was
Marion Cotillard winning the Best Actress Academy Award in 2008 (only
the third French actress to have received the coveted award, after Claudette Colbert
and Simone Signoret); she had already bagged the César, the
BAFTA and the Golden Globe awards in the same category. For
Marion Cotillard and her director Olivier Dahan, the future looks very
bright indeed. As the French would say,
c'est la vie en rose...
© James Travers 2008
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Next Olivier Dahan film:
Les Seigneurs (2012)
Film Synopsis
In 1959, an internationally renowned
singer falls ill during her highly publicised tour of America.
In the early 1920s, a young girl lives through the most harrowing of
childhoods, rejected by her mother, reared in a brothel, and then
earning a meagre crust by singing in the streets of Paris.
Though illness is gradually wearing her
away, the ageing singer is determined to continue her career and plans
her next concert in France. The child grows into a
young woman; her talent as a street singer attracts a nightclub owner,
who offers her a job. Her success is easily
won, and easily lost. When her benefactor is found dead, the young
singer feels she has lost everything. But no, this is merely the
first act in her remarkable life. The abandoned street urchin
would become that great singer, would live a life filled with joy and
tragedy, and would die, burned out, wrecked by over-work, self-abuse
and illness, at the age of 47.
She
was Edith Piaf, la Môme...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.