Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Must See

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dorothy please can you give me the link of the video,I dont have Quiktime running well.Please :)

Dorothy Porker said...

Hey Oliver. You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0pYzCpaZC8
That should hopefully work.

k said...

Why, this is on my DVD!

Eoghan McQ said...

Wonderful! Best making-of I've seen on the film.

Delsa said...

Magnifiscent document, thank you so much...

Yet, the thing is, when explaining her life they forget many aspects like her friendship with Ginou Richer (who sneaked into one of her tours as a girlfriend of a guy from the "Compagnons de la chanson" troupe acompanying her...), and Marlene Dietrich...How now famous (deceased) actress Suzanne Flon, started as her secretary and became her friend and she pushed her to pursue her dream of acting...

The death of the love of her life (in a way "because" of her) iconic French pied noir boxer Marcellin "Marcel" Cerdan, the time she had a pimp almost as a prostitute but managed to sing instead, her blindness for 3 years as a child, the death of her daughter she kind of abandoned (curiously named Marcelle just like Marcel Cerdan...and again almost "because of her")...Her attachment to Saint Teresa during her whole life...

The death of her 1st mentor, Louis Leplée, assacinated, how she was highly suspected as his killer and then vindicated and had to change her stage name and start from scratch, how Charles Aznavour lived in her house for 12 years, how she launched the career of Yves Montand, was a big part in George Moustaki's one...

How she toured with the singing troupe "Les Compgnons de La chanson" for many years (songs like C'est pour ça, Les Cloches etc... are our testimony to that...)...

Her fascinating careerlong partnership wih pianist and composer Marguerite Monot (who had a very interesting life story herself), with Michel Emer who wrote beautiful texts perfectly suited to her and met her just before going to the front, with Raymond Asso who pushed her in the direction of the "chanson réaliste" with all the body language and emotions in the voice we now see and hear her having...

All her other "little loves" with Jacques Pills, Moustaki, Theo Samboukas aka Theo Sarapo (I love you in Greek, she had chosen this stage name for him herself and their well-known song "À quoi ça sert l'Amour?" (What is love for? :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrJNU8PqjW0 , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuJi9AQpB7Q ) in which Édith feigns to explain to the youngster Sarapo what she sees Love and by extension life to be and it is so her it is wonderful... (I particularly like this part :"But you are the last one, so you're the first one. Before you there was nothing, with you I am happiest..." : when she was happy she was the happiest, when she was sad, she was the saddest.

She lived with such an intensity.). They don't even mention her relation ship with the weird and mysterious (because she lied a lot and she came from the streets as well) character that Simone "Mômone" Bertaud is as well...

And her addictions, and her car accidents, and her manager Louis Barrier, and her relation with the crazy Jean Cocteau who gave he her first acting role in a crazier play...and when she sung the "révolutionnaire" song, the a ira in historical docufiction "If Versailles was narrated to me"...

And her tyranny, sometime ununderstandable if you don't get like all those working on the film did it seems that it was in fact quite logical seeing her life and the resulting need for love : it was because there was nothing she feared more than being alone... And so much more, so muche more... But well, it is only a summary I guess.

I absolutely adored the movie despite the numerous aspects of her life he lacked because it is not a biography as trumpeted by O. Dahan and it captured her spirit (and it was coplete in emotions, the most important), but seing something even more over-simplified like that makes me fear people won't get how fasinating she was...

Here are great articles explaining her and the process behind the movie :

Most complete interview of Marion on the role and her understanding of Piaf : http://www.emanuellevy.com/article.php?articleID=5345

Interview of Ginou Richer : http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,2107274,00.html

Interview of Olivier Dahan : http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/features/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003586945

A great blog entry explaining as many including me have tried to do so here, how La Môme isn't a biopic but a real emotional portrait of Piaf (for the better : a magnifiscent faithful portrait and great movie, and worse : not complete in " comprehansively explaining", "historically showing" her incredible life) which is fantastic : http://mynewplaidpants.blogspot.com/2008/02/viva-piaf.html

Anonymous said...

Talking about a Must see here's an English interview of Marion and Guillaume for Love me if you are that was posted on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR0sKT4Qvgk

Anonymous said...

I saw that, it is very funny. I loved the story about Guillaume having to flirt with a waiter in a restaurant, and Marion pissing herself over it. Surely the waiter knew something was going on with Marion in convulsions. I loved it when he couldn’t think of the word of the word gay and was like: I like girls a lot; sounds like they had a ball making that film.