rantlust

Posted by anupcs on January 11th 2008 in Movies
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The first time I heard an Edith Piaf song was in the movie “Saving Private Ryan” by Spielberg. The scene is the calm before a momentous battle in which the soldiers ruminate on a song by Piaf amidst the ruins of a city they are defending. Though it had been years since my last French lesson, I was struck by the tragedy in her voice and immediately went about acquiring a few CDs of the French icon. I play Piaf on quiet evenings with a glass of Scotch by my side and a book to curl up with. I enjoy her music even though I understand hardly anything she’s singing.

Piaf was born in the slums of Paris in 1915 and died at the early age of 47 of liver cancer. She led a very tragic life despite her worldwide fame. There have been numerous biographies, movies and even plays made about her life. The most recent one is called “La Vie En Rose” (in the US — everywhere else it’s called “La Mome”) that I saw last night. Marion Cotillard plays Piaf with such ferocity and intensity that if the Academy award folks don’t nominate her for this performance, they should be fed to the lions. The movie pretty much portrays Piaf’s life as accurately as is known publicly. The normally gorgeous Cotillard (watch her true self in the Russell Crowe flop “A Good Year“) is stunningly transformed into the diminutive (and not so pleasing to the eye) Piaf with layers of makeup in what will be a career defining role. The movie is a bit too long at two hours and twenty minutes but still a captivating look at the life of a legend. You can see a preview of the movie here.

Rather than showing a clip from this movie, I am going to leave you with the scene in “Saving Private Ryan” that first introduced me to the music of Piaf: