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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

THB – La Vie En Rose

What keeps us, as an audience, going through the hard times (which are much easier a second time around), is the powerful intimacy of the performances, led by Cotillard. And this is where they both seem to live. Dailies? Not only doesn’t she watch them, HE doesn’t watch them. How did he work with her on the set? “I don’t work with her on the set. I don’t work on the set.” Cottillard watched every bit of footage of Piaf she could get her hands on, including Super 8 home movies, in preparing. But did the director? “I read the books. She looked at the video, not me. That was her area. I did mine. She did hers.”
There are so many young directors and other show bizzers who are constantly building images of themselves for the press and the world. But there is a rawness to Dahan that stripped me of my cynicism. No doubt, it seems, he could be very difficult to work with. One could imagine that his way of doing things, on a troubled show, could be painful. But here, it seems to have been a perfect storm.

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8 Responses to “THB – La Vie En Rose”

  1. samguy says:

    Re reimainging CAROUSEL. I thought the same thing after I saw a revival of it here in L.A. about a dozen years ago. Ditto SHOWBOAT, another show with a great score and strong themes. Both of these stories need to be “freed” and adapted to modern sensiblities.
    Maybe that’s what the Weinsteins and Rob Marshall should be working on instead of the less than classic NINE.

  2. David Poland says:

    I like Nine and Love 8 1/2… but the score is not as memorable as many… that will be the hard part of selling it… but what is attractive is the 6 roles for actresses.

  3. Noah says:

    First of all, that Debbie Does Dallas show on Showtime is incredibly fascinating and Paul Thomas is a big time jerk it seems.
    Second of all, I would love to see an alt-version of either Oliver (but since Polanski’s Oliver Twist just came out, that seems doubtful) or My Fair Lady. I’m surprised after Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet, nobody thought to do updated or “alt” versions of anything except Shakespeare. Unless you count Clueless as a reimagining of Emma, which I don’t.

  4. Wrecktum says:

    Jeez, Hugh Jackman’s been attached to a remake of Carousel since last summer.
    http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117947820.html?cs=1&s=h&p=0
    You’d think Poland would mention this in his article.

  5. David Poland says:

    That project is way on the backburner, Wreck.

  6. Wrecktum says:

    Agreed. But you probably should have mentioned it. Nice article, by the way.

  7. Interesting to hear Dave. Many Europeans who have seen it seem to think it’s a Hollywoodised biopic version of Edith’s life. Did you notice that in the film? Also, will it actually be titled La Vie en Rose or La Mome or whatever exotic title they decide to give it.
    I gotta bring up one issue though. You say Cotillard’s performance is a likely Oscar nominee, yet weren’t you all up in Penelope Cruz’ case last year saying it was very hard for foreign language performances to get nominated. And Cruz is a much much bigger name than Cotillard who most people have never heard of before. It may be a breakthrough but will it be seen as such?

  8. Also, sorry, but the other entry is too far gone. Just watched the Hairspray trailer. Colour me impressed. It really looks like Shankman can direct a musical. He, SHOCKINGLY, actually appears to keep the camera on the dancing and the sets. I also think they’re doing a good thing in seemingly advertising it more as a dance movie than a straight out musical. Younger people are more likely to see a movie with dancing than constant singing. Michelle Pfeiffer looks amazing. And, my eyes hate me for it, but I can’t stop looking at Travolta! There’s something fascinating about watching him in this. Utterly bizarre.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

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But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
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“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon