Summary: Edith Piaf was raised in a brothel, wrested from the only life she knew by her father so they could join the circus, Edith spent her teen years on the streets. She is finally "rescued" by a crime figure who gives her career a start, and, ultimately, her international success and final illness. She was always frail, sickly, malnourished, and wildly temperamental. She was often on drugs or...

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: HBO Video 2007

Copies Available at Woodmere

2 available in Foreign DVDs, Call number: DVD FOREIGN VIE

Copies Available at Peninsula

1 available in Digital Video Disc, Call number: DVD VIE RATED PG-13

Summary: Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman's life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: Criterion Collection 2007

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Foreign DVDs, Call number: DVD FOREIGN CLE

Summary: In 1862 Paris, Emile Zola is barely scratching out a living writing muckraking articles about the poverty of the French people and the corruption of their leaders. Until "Nana," about the life of a prostitute, becomes a smash hit and turns Zola into a celebrity, champion of the people. As he churns out a string of similar books that make him quite rich, his old friend Paul Cezanne tells him "An...

Format: moving image

Publisher / Publication Date: 2005

Copies Available at Woodmere

1 available in Drama DVDs, Call number: DVD DRAMA LIF