Although the final credits read that some comments are imaginary ,this MTV film is an absorbing doc about the greatest French chanteuse that had ever been ; many (never seen) color pictures were made by Piaf's accordionist and show a woman full of joie de vivre ; her life was no bed of roses but she was a bon vivant and enjoyed a good laugh with her friends .
A biopic with interventions by Charles Aznavour who tells us she saw "the third man" ten times in English and in French in turn ; that she left her numerous protégés (he was one of them ,along with Montand) when they became famous .
A biopic with warts and all , but an artist through and through ; she did write words to her songs and till the very end ,when she was so sick they had to help her leave the stage where she had given everything to her audience in awe of a little woman who weighed 40 kg (=88 lbs) when she died .Such luminaries as Duke Ellington and Marlene Dietrich (who was always a good friend to her) attended her concerts .
Ahead of her time ,she was a feminist but she didn't know it ; she ruled over her band of (male) protégés and even over heavyweight champion Marcel Cerdan she tried to educate with serious books ;she traveled over the whole world , far from the gutter, she triumphed in Carnegie Hall and sang here there and everywhere ...but the price to pay was hard -she was not a junkie ,as people sometimes claim ,Aznavour says , her sufferings were intense and to ease the pain, she had to resort to morphine.
40,000 mourners follow her coffin to the Père La Chaise graveyard.
A biopic with interventions by Charles Aznavour who tells us she saw "the third man" ten times in English and in French in turn ; that she left her numerous protégés (he was one of them ,along with Montand) when they became famous .
A biopic with warts and all , but an artist through and through ; she did write words to her songs and till the very end ,when she was so sick they had to help her leave the stage where she had given everything to her audience in awe of a little woman who weighed 40 kg (=88 lbs) when she died .Such luminaries as Duke Ellington and Marlene Dietrich (who was always a good friend to her) attended her concerts .
Ahead of her time ,she was a feminist but she didn't know it ; she ruled over her band of (male) protégés and even over heavyweight champion Marcel Cerdan she tried to educate with serious books ;she traveled over the whole world , far from the gutter, she triumphed in Carnegie Hall and sang here there and everywhere ...but the price to pay was hard -she was not a junkie ,as people sometimes claim ,Aznavour says , her sufferings were intense and to ease the pain, she had to resort to morphine.
40,000 mourners follow her coffin to the Père La Chaise graveyard.