MIT Lecture Series Committee

Rated PG-13
140 minutes

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La Vie en Rose (2007)

Writer/director Olivier Dahan (Crimson Rivers II) helmed La Vie en Rose, the screen biopic of tragic French songstress Edith Piaf. Marion Cotillard portrays Piaf, the superstar once raised as a young girl by her grandmother in a Normandy bordello, then discovered on a French street corner -- as a complete unknown -- by cabaret proprietor Louis Lepl�e (G�rard Depardieu). The film segues breezily between various episodes from Piaf's life; such as the championship bout of her lover, French boxer Marcel Cerdan (Gerard Depardieu), in mid-'40s New York; her period in Hollywood during the '50s; Piaf's abandonment as a young girl by her contortionist father (and earlier by her mother, a street singer); her brushes with the law as an adult; and her 1951 car accident and subsequent morphine addiction that caused her to age well beyond her years and left her barely mobile; and, through it all, her ability (like Billie Holiday) to funnel personal tragedy and emotional struggles into her vocalizations -- dazzling audiences in the process. [www.allmovie.com]

2007 Academy Award WINNER: Best Actress (Marion Cotillard), Best Makeup, and NOMINEE: Best Costume Design

The movie, the voice of Piaf, and a performance that turns Marion Cotillard into a great new star shimmer with the kind of beauty, power, intensity and visual opulence you might want to experience again and again.
      -- Rex Reed, New York Observer. Read this review.