The agony and the ecstasy of Marion Cotillard

In the United States she is the embodiment of class and sophistication. In France she is the butt of many a jokes about over-acting. Why is this? I get to the bottom of it.

This is an article about Marion Cotillard. I didn’t expect to be writing this but I have had too many discussions with friends on both sides of the Atlantic about her and I can’t hold it in any longer. Since no one is tamping down on redundant things being written on the internet, I have decided to write about this most urgent non thing I can think of this week.

If you have been living in a box (or perhaps only watch John Cena movies), Marion Cotillard is the academy award winning French actress who has, for the last decade or so, forged a career on both sides of the Atlantic and on all levels of the cinematic spectrum: from illustrious Cannes baiting fare like Michel Audiard’s RUST AND BONE and the Dardennes Brothers’ DEUX JOURS ET UNE NUIT to big Hollywood spectacles like Michael Mann’s PUBLIC ENEMIES and INCEPTION. Here she is teaching Brad Pitt how to shoot a gun in Robert Zemeckis’ film ALLIES …

Actually she is wearing sun glasses here, so perhaps this is not the best representation…Ah here we go…

She is, perhaps to the surprise to my American readers… a lightning rod. Like all actresses she attracts her fair share of supporters and haters. But in Marion’s case, the fans and loathers are also primarily separated by an ocean. To be blunt, in the Unites States, they love her. I have yet to meet an American who is not a Marion Cotillard supporter. In France, and more specifically, amongst the French intelligentsia: they can’t stand her. And I want to know why. What are the reasons? Why this divide?

For America: she is the latest incarnation of the perfect French woman, demure, classy, beautiful and sophisticated. She is an Ioan farm boy’s idea of what a French woman looks and sounds like. Indeed she does not hide her accent when she speaks English and is often cast because of it. It certainly has not seem to bother esteemed filmmakers like Christopher Nolan who just went with it by casting her as Leo’s French wife in INCEPTION. Michael Mann also was not that daring when he offered her the role of “Frenchy” in PUBLIC ENEMIES that he perhaps thought she would be perfect for.

But Marion is not the first French actress who has had a Hollywood go round. She is perhaps the most successful of them, but did you know Catherine Deneuve was in a movie with Burt Reynolds?

Well now you do.

1979’s HUSTLE provides proof that in the seventies, people were willing to try anything.

It also illustrates that this is not the first time Hollywood has fallen in love with a French screen siren. Isabelle Adjani, Isabelle Huppert and to a certain extent Juliette Binoche have had this privilege although I would argue in a much more limited sense.

There is also the curious example of Eva Green who has gone the other way. She is a French / Swedish actress, the daughter of one of the most beloved children’s authors and actresses of the seventies in France, Marlene Jobert who decided to do English speaking movies only. Not even try to break into the French market. Everyone in the U.S. knows her from Tim Burton’s fare but she has not once been in any French speaking films. Eva has tread a rare path.

But now back to Marion Cotillard….

The controversy is this: Cotillard is an Academy award winning actress that America took under their wing ten years ago with her turn in “La Mome”, the bio pic of Edith Piaff. Ever since then she has criss crossed between countries, giving performances in very visible movies. Perhaps exhibit A in French people’s frustration with her comes with a very internet visible demonstration of her acting skills in the form of dying in BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. Few have lived down dying badly on screen. She is not the first and she is not the last. Perhaps Marion Cotillard was frustrated that day but her choices here remain a meme classic for years now. Without further ado, here is her dying in Batman.

The mystical art of onscreen dying

Now for the record I am not again Marion Cotillard but now that I’m a French citizen, I have noticed that a lot of my fellow countryman are. I think their argument seems mainly to be: “why the hell did you go and pick that one?” Their point being that there are many other actresses of her generation that seem infinitely worthy of exaltation. But the point is that those actresses perhaps didn’t have any interest in being an international star. Nor did they have the gumption to wrestle with the English language.

The problem in France is she is very few people’s idea of the ultimate French woman. For a clue unto this, take Emmanuelle Beart, Laure Calamy Emmanuele Devos, Sandrine Kimberlain or even the Belgian actress Virginie Effira who fit much more into the Parisian view of what makes a refined woman worthy of exaltation. Parisians seem much more excited to see these women on screen. Americans: have you heard of them? No you have not.

It’s just all very interesting psychologically. To see what gets people psyched up and psyched out. To contemplate people’s senses of cinematic injustice. Who a country holds up on a pedestal, especially for other people to consider is a very interesting proposition. Perhaps one could compare it a little to the country’s pick for Academy Award consideration: which like Marion Cotillard often flies in the face of local estimation. Every year, most of the French cultural class are somewhat baffled by the choice for what film the powers that be have deemed worthy of putting on a pedestal. You can almost hear the back row speaking “they picked that?” Really?

In conclusion, Marion Cotillard does not need my defending. Do you think that all these international filmmakers all over the world would keep casting her if she didn’t have the chops? I think she has more than proved herself as an actress and there are Palme D'Or winners out there who join in my approval.

But I also think she is a movie star. She carries herself like one and has managed to hold up her end of the ambassador to high end French fashion houses like Dior like nobody’s business. There is a reason that the world wants her to be French.

Also, and this is my last point, my girl Marion is also not without a sense of humour. I am sure she is seated right now reading this article thinking: does he not know I see the weirdness in all of this? Well take exhibit A to be this Funny or Die sketch she made early in her American career:

Marion is fully aware that to make it these days, you need to know how the public sees you and roll with it. And this my readers is perhaps the secret to Marion’s happiness and perhaps her success as well. She is willing able and able to not give a f/@#.