(literally Life in pink, ;A literal translation of "La Vie en Rose" is "Life in Pink", a figurative reference to rose-colored glasses. )La Môme refers to Piaf's nickname "La Môme Piaf" (meaning "baby sparrow, birdie, little sparrow") is a 2007 biographical musical film about the life of French singer Édith Piaf, co-written and directed by Olivier Dahan, and starring Marion Cotillard as Piaf. The UK and US title comes from Piaf's signature song. The film is an international co-production between France, Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom. It made its world premiere at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival in the main competition.
Cotillard's performance received widespread critical acclaim and earned her several awards including the Academy Award for Best Actress – the first time an Oscar had been given for a French-language role – the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and the César Award for Best Actress. The film also won the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, the BAFTA Award for Best Makeup, BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design, BAFTA Award for Best Film Music, and four additional César Awards.
The film grossed $87.4 million worldwide on a $25 million budget and sold over seven million tickets in Europe, over five million tickets in France, and over one million tickets in the United States, becoming the highest-grossing French film of 2007.
Plot The film is structured as a largely non-linear series of key events from the life of Édith Piaf.The audience ultimately learns that the events from the film are flashbacks from within Édith's own memory as she dies. The film begins with elements from her childhood, and at the end with the events prior to and surrounding her death, poignantly juxtaposed by a performance of her song, "Non, je ne regrette rien" (No, I do not Regret Anything).
Beginning in 1918, young Édith suffers a chaotic childhood and is eventually sent to live with her paternal-grandmother, who runs a brothel in Normandy. Édith witnesses the brutal business of prostitution. When she suffers an episode of keratitis-induced blindness, a kind-hearted sex worker named Titine tenderly cares for Édith.
Édith's World War I veteran father collects her to accompany him while he works as a circus acrobat. One night, Édith sees a vision of St Thérèse in a fire eater's flames. St Thérèse says she will always be with Édith—a belief that she carries for the rest of her life. When Édith is nine years old, her father leaves the circus and performs on the streets of Paris. During a lackluster performance, a passerby asks if Édith is part of the show. She spontaneously sings "La Marseillaise" with raw emotion, mesmerizing the street crowd.
Years later, nightclub owner Louis Leplée hires Édith to sing at his club and gives her the stage surname of Piaf, a colloquialism for sparrow that is inspired by her diminutive height of only 1.47m (4 ft 8in). However, Leplée is soon shot dead and the police suspect it is due to Édith's connections to the mafia. When she next attempts a show at a cabaret, she is jeered off the stage by a hostile crowd. Things go from bad to worse when her best friend, Mômone, is forcibly taken to a convent. Desperate, Édith turns to Raymond Asso, a songwriter and accompanist. Through harsh means, he enlivens her stage presence with hand gestures, better enunciation, and other lessons.
Édith's career progresses and she achieves fame. While performing in New York City, Édith meets Marcel Cerdan, a fellow French national and a middleweight boxer competing for the World Champion title. Despite him being married, Édith believes she is falling in love with Marcel. An affair ensues and, while it is supposedly a secret, "" is played for Marcel wherever he goes. Édith persuades Marcel to fly from Paris to join her in New York, and he wakes her up in her bedroom with a kiss. She goes to get coffee and is informed by her entourage that Marcel was killed when his plane crashed. Édith hysterically searches for his ghost.
The narrative bookends scenes from Édith's middle life with repeated vignettes. One set of memories shows Édith with short curly hair, singing on stage and collapsing. She develops arthritis, as well as a severe morphine addiction. Her husband, Jacques Pills, persuades her to enter drug rehabilitation, and she travels to California with him. A now-sober but manic Édith drives around in a convertible while joking and teasing her compatriots. She drives into a Joshua tree, but the hilarity continues as Édith gets out and pretends to hitchhike.
Years later, an aged Édith is now frail and hunched. She squabbles with her entourage about whether or not she will be able to perform at the Olympia. Charles Dumont and Michel Vaucaire offer her the composition, "Non, je ne regrette rien", which she loves and announces that she will perform it.
Prior to what turns out to be her last performance, Édith asks for the cross necklace that she always wears and her staff rush away to get it. She sits in quiet solitude and experiences memories of her past. After Édith puts on the retrieved cross and shuffles out onto the stage, more flashbacks are shown as she sings. Édith relives a sunny day on a beach while knitting. She answers an interviewer's questions, during which she repeatedly encourages others to "Love."
Édith's hard living and cancer has caused her to waste away at the age of 47. As she is tucked into bed, a subtitle reveals this is her last day alive. She is afraid and experiences a disjointed series of memories of small, yet defining moments—her mother commenting on her "wild eyes", her father giving her a doll, and thoughts of her own dead child, Marcelle. In a flashback, Édith performs "Non, je ne regrette rien" at the Olympia.
Cast
Marion Cotillard as Édith Piaf Sylvie Testud as Simone "Mômone" Berteaut Pascal Greggory as Louis Barrier Emmanuelle Seigner as Titine Jean-Paul Rouve as Louis Alphonse Gassion Gérard Depardieu as Louis Leplée Clotilde Courau as Annetta Gassion Jean-Pierre Martins as Marcel Cerdan Catherine Allégret as Louise Gassion Marc Barbé as Raymond Asso Marie-Armelle Deguy as Marguerite Monnot Caroline Raynaud as Ginou Denis Ménochet as Journalist in Orly Pavlína Němcová as American journalist Harry Hadden-Paton as Doug Davis Caroline Silhol as Marlene Dietrich Pauline Burlet as a young Édith Piaf Farida Amrouche as Emma Saïd Ben Mohamed André Penvern as Jacques Canetti
Production Development Director Olivier Dahan came up with the idea for the film on 22 January 2004, when he was in a bookstore and found a book of photographs of French singer Édith Piaf and began to look at them. "I didn't know about her very early years and (there was) a photo that really made this first impression for me. It was a photo of her in a street when she was something like 17 years old and she really looked 'punk' (in terms of her) clothes and everything (and her) attitude. This photo was so far from the iconic image that I had (of Piaf when she was older). I just started to imagine something very quickly — what was in between that very early photo and the iconic image of her in the black dress and everything. That's the first impression (I had)", Dahan said. That same day, Dahan sent a text message proposing the project to French producer Alain Goldman, with whom he had previously worked on the film Crimson Rivers II: Angels of the Apocalypse (2004), and Goldman quickly replied saying he had accepted to work on the project. Dahan then started to buy and read every biography about Piaf for his research. Dahan said that he did not want to make a biopic or to just adapt Piaf's biography, but rather make his own version of the story.
Dahan co-wrote the screenplay with Isabelle Sobelman. The writing process lasted one year. The first draft of the script had 200 pages, and the final version that was used in the film had 140 pages.
The film is an international co-production between France, Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom. It was co-produced by Légende Films, TF1 International, TF1 Films Production, Songbird Pictures, Okko Productions, Scotts Atlantic, Sofica Valor 7, Canal+, TPS Star and Nydrle. International sales were handled by Newen Connect, a TF1 Group Company.
The French title, , refers to Piaf's nickname, (meaning "The Sparrow Kid" or "Little Sparrow"). The UK and US title comes from Piaf's signature song.
Casting Marion Cotillard was chosen by Dahan to portray Édith Piaf in before he had even met her, and he wrote the script with Cotillard in mind. Dahan said she was cast because he noticed a similarity between Piaf's and Cotillard's eyes after seeing a photo of Piaf when she was 16 years old in a book. Producer Alain Goldman and casting director Olivier Carbone accepted and defended the choice, while French distributor TF1 reduced the money they gave to finance the film because they thought Cotillard was not "bankable" enough an actress. The producers originally wanted Audrey Tautou for the role, and reduced $5 million from the budget after Cotillard was cast. Dahan insisted that he would not make the film without Cotillard. Tautou's agent, Laurent Grégoire, said he had set up a meeting between Tautou and the film's producers, but when Tautou was informed of the film's premise, she responded: "Who is going to be interested in a film about Édith Piaf?", and the producers lost interest in casting her, so Grégoire suggested his other client, Marion Cotillard, for the role.
Dahan met Cotillard for the first time at the end of the writing process, and he gave Cotillard some books about Piaf because he did not want to make any rehearsal nor any reading with the actress, because he did not have time to do it, so they just started working together during the shooting.
Filming Principal photography began on 16 January 2006 and wrapped in April 2006. Filming took place in Paris, Los Angeles and Prague.
To better resemble Piaf, Cotillard shaved back her hairline and shaved off her eyebrows, which were later penciled back in. She also spent up to five hours in the makeup chair to achieve Piaf's older look. Cotillard is a foot taller than Piaf – who was only 1,47 cm (4 ft 8in) tall – and had to contract her body in order to make herself look shorter. She also wore shortwaisted dresses and worked in bare feet while the other actors wore stacked shoes. Oversized tables and chairs designed to make Cotillard look smaller were also used on set.
Dahan wanted to shoot Cotillard in tight close-ups and ended up arguing with both the film's director of photography and the makeup artist, who did not believe that it would be possible to make Cotillard – who was 30 years old at the time – look older in close-ups. Cotillard said that Dahan pushed them to find a way.
Dahan said he did not like to make a lot of takes, so some of the film's key emotional moments were shot in only two to four takes, and most of the time they just did four takes.
Music The score was composed by Christopher Gunning.
Cotillard performed the song "Frou-Frou" in La Vie en Rose. Recordings of Piaf were also used in the film. Three songs were entirely performed by singer Jil Aigrot: "Mon Homme" (My Man), "Les Mômes de la Cloche" (The kids of the bell), and "Les Hiboux" (Owls), as well as the third verse and chorus of "L'Accordéoniste" (The accordionist) and the first chorus of "Padam, padam...". Only parts of these last two songs were sung because they were sung while Piaf/Cotillard was fatigued and collapsed on stage. Apart from that, "La Marseillaise" is performed by child singer Cassandre Berger (lip-synched by Pauline Burlet, who plays the young Édith in the film), and Mistinguett's "Mon Homme" (My Man) and "Il m'a vue nue" (He saw me naked) (sung in part by Emmanuelle Seigner) also appear.