Customer Reviews

Edith Piaf : Eternal Hymn (Éternelle, l'hymne à la môme)[Non-US Format, Pal, Region 2, Import] DVD

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This French-only DVD along with other CD's such "Eternele: Les Plus Chansons de Edith Paif" (with similar artwork) were released in 2003 as part of the 40th anniversary of the death of Edith Piaf (1963).

Since all the footage in this DVD is very old (late 40's to early 60's) and from different sources (TV stations, libraries, and private archival) I did not expect a high-definition program. Some of the oldest videos are actually of better quality than the later ones, mostly because they are extracted from films that were generally taped in a higher resolution than the ones for broadcast purposes. The footage has been restored nicely. About 50% of the videos (performances) have very good quality. The sound quality is very good throughout the program.

The DVD program is split in 3 parts:

"L'Hymne a la mome: les chansons integrales"
20 performances from concerts and appearances in TV, films. Mostly in B&W. All of them are nearly complete, except for a 4-second computer-generated "Edith Piaf" 3D intro (w/song title, place and date) before each song and which blends in with the performance. Some intros have a live audience effect which I find very annoying specially on the performances that have no obvious audience. This is my only major complaint on the DVD editing. The "intro" and info before each song is very good, but there was no need to overlap it with the performance.

Mon manège à moi (inédit en DVD)
L'hymne à l'amour
La sérénade du pavé (inédit en DVD)
Milord
L'accordéoniste (inédit en DVD)
La vie en rose (inédit en DVD)
La foule
Bal dans ma rue
Non, je ne regrette rien (inédit en DVD)
Padam... Padam (inédit en DVD)
A quoi ça sert l'amour
C'est pour ça (inédit en DVD)
Les 3 cloches
La goualante du pauvre Jean
Bravo pour le clown
Sophie (inédit en DVD)
Le fanion de la légion
La vie en rose (en anglais)
L'homme à la moto
La foule (inédit en DVD) [it's labeled as "inedit version", very poor video quality, sound is not as bad]

"Les coulisses de sa vie"
private footage in color, 1-hr long

"Les actualites"
unedited archival footage, 10-min long.

The performances have MONO and 5.1 channel audio options. The rest has 2ch audio.

According to the booklet, 9 out of the 20 performances have never been released on DVD before. Booklet contains info on origin of the videos as well as place and date of performance.

Do not let the "region" limitations to hold you back from buying this must-have DVD for Edith Piaf fans because the DVD can be played in your DVD-Rom, and multi-region DVD players are very affordable these days.