To begin, this was not La Vie en Rose, and for those walking into this 1983 French film expecting the Marion Cotillard Edith Piaf will be sorely disapointed. That is not to say this is not a good film, it has highlights like any good film does, but it is not the same as the 2007 biopic. Claude Lelouch, who brought us the 1966 feature A Man and A Woman, tried to show the beauty, the emotion, and the unadulterated love between Edith Piaf and Marcel Cerdan, but instead followed-through with a bumbling afterthought which included a non-expressive second story, "Gone with the Wind", lip synching, and a two and a half hour film which could have easily been a mere 80-minutes and still found its voice. This was one of those films for me that I jumped in expecting a slow-moving French biography, instead discovered that I enjoyed the pacing of the first half, only to witness Lelouch's inability to control the "grasping-at-straws" parallel stories at the same time. Where one should have suffered, he kept them both alive throughout - and they both failed. Miserably.
I hate to be the one to knock this film, but I have to look at it as the sum of its parts. First, Edith Piaf was a phenomenal singer, history has proven that, but to squander her voice by having Evelyne Bouix lip-synch her songs just felt like a cheap, Vegas side-show. Yet, Lelouch bought back brownie points by not making her the center of attention. Her songs were the central focus of this film, the words, the melody, the sheer forced expression that Bouix brought to this famed persona, were all a part of Piaf's world, and Lelouch knew this by making her songs play on the radio, on a record in the background as life continued to coexist. Then, as if he knew he had to bring both the good eggs home along with the rotten ones, he decided that he would dedicate half the film to this unemotional love that takes place between a unkempt soldier and a student who discovers the power of the written word (and her deep annoying love for "Gone with the Wind"). This is one of those parts that felt like it would work on paper - seeing the two stories gel together to show how Piaf's music both touched her life as well as the lives of everyone in Franch - again, seemed like an idea that would allow Lelouch to discover his directing ability. But the problem becomes this doesn't, and will not, translate onto the screen. Instead, what Lelouch creates is a jumbled, mess of a film that had too much story and not enough development. By the middle of the film, I just didn't care. I didn't care about the music, I didn't care about the characters, and when the sudden love between Marcel and Edith happens, I just didn't know them enough to follow-through the rest of this film (no chemistry, no defining love moment). As our second story begins to dissolve under the pressures of Piaf and Cerdan, Lelouch seems to recognize the failing story and jumps headfirst into Piaf's story - which felt like we needed a narrator stating, "...we now return you to your regular story, which is already in progress..." Mentioned before that this film would work, in fact it could have been a movie that demonstrated originality in the biography genre of film, but instead - like the cinematic horse pill - it became too hard to swallow. The parts were too weak, creating a mixed film with overall bad parts.
I will give Edith and Marcel one very strong credit, Lelouch and co. were not afraid to mention other great films as the backdrop of the time. For example, when our soldiers are sitting around one night they mention that they feel like The Grand Illusion, while coincidentally I was feeling the same thing. Lelouch drew from other directors to imitate their scenes, but I just cannot support this film. While I thought there were one to two decent parts, overall there were just too many bad parts to count. I couldn't wait for this film to be over. Could we never learn that lip synching is never an option?
Here is what "my man Elliot Wilhelm from "Videohound's World Cinema: The Adventurer's Guide to Movie Watching" had to say:
Too reverential, too dull, and too long. Claude Lelouch must have embarked on this project as if it were some kind of historical biopic about founding fathers who were never actually alive - just mythological. Chanteuse Edith Piaf and boxer Marcel Cerdan were both French national treasures, of course, but just because they got together, do they have to be turned into waxworks - Raging Stiffs? And why did they get together? We don't have a clue (see: parts), but Francis Lai's sticky musical score insistently tries - and fails - to fill in the Grand Canyon - like storytelling gaps. Evelyne Bouix lip-synchs to Piaf recordings of "Ma Vie en Rose", while Cerdan's kid, Marcel Jr. (who unfortunately got talked into playing his old man in this dog) jumps rope and punches his punching bag, waiting for his title shot. In the French version, it takes two-and-a-half hours until the tragic finish. The best thing about the American prints is that they're almost an hour shorter. Nice costumes.
Mark: Surprisingly, a pink mark. I cannot hate this film, but the straws are so flimsy that I just get milk all over me. I will not watch this again, nor recommend to friends, but it was neat to see the direction Lelouch attempted to go. Originality was a thought executioned poorly.
